The Mummy: A New Beginning
by Phantom Creedy Lover
Summary: Reposted and Revised. Tess is Evy and Jonathan's sister,Rick's old comrade, and Henderson's best friend. Needless to say she's between a rock and a hard place with taking sides when she goes along on the trip to find Hamunaptra. Will she get by? ArdethOC.
1. History is Found

**A/N: I'm reposting this story after a few big changes to it, and a different approach at the beginning. People who've read this know who Tess is, people who haven't, Tess is the OC in this trilogy. Hope you guys enjoy, and the years may be off. My brain doesn't seem to wanna work today.**

* * *

"Hey Kat, I think I found somethin'!" Brian McCallum called for his twin sister. The siblings had just turned eighteen. Unlike most of their friends in school, the pair of them had a love for history. Their father, Mark, claimed it ran in the family. That love was what had landed the pair of them rooting around in the attic of their grandparents' vacation house in Texas. Mark had wanted to check for an old journal his grandfather had written to show the students in the college class he taught. Mark was ecstatic when the twins had volunteered to help out. Now here Brian was, in front of a large wooden chest.

Katherine McCallum walked up behind him and bent down. "What?"

Brian shrugged, then took hold of one of the sides of the chest's lid. "Help me with this."

Kat nodded and helped him push it back. Once it was open fully, the two knelt down, taking in the contents.

There were various letters, books, photos and other odds and ends that lined the sides, and filled a good portion of the chest.

Brian chuckled. "That's one Hell of a time capsule…" He mused. He turned around. "Hey, Dad!" He called. He turned his attention back to the chest and pulled out two of the pictures. "Hey, that guy looks like Dad… and… I have no idea who those two might be…" He passed over the photo to Kat, who shrugged.

The pair of them turned to Mark when he came into the attic. "Hey, we came across this. Maybe that journal is in here. Any idea who these people are?"

Mark looked at the photos, then laughed. "Yes, of course I do." He laughed. "They're your family- that's your great grandmother Tess, greatgrandfathers Ardeth and Marcus- long story, then there's great uncle Rick, and great aunt Evelyn, with Grandma Alia and your granduncles Les and Ian." Mark replied.

His children turned and arched an eyebrow at him.

Mark shrugged. "They were… quite the family. It's not, once you really think about it. Where did you find this?" He squeezed in between them and rifled through the books. He found one, opened to the first page, and grinned. "Here we are. Marcus' journal…" He put it down, then picked up a notebook and frowned at it, more so when a couple of letters fell out from between the next two pages. "What's this…?" He put one back, then opened the other one carefully. He scooted over so both of his children could get closer, and all three began to read the letter silently.

_To Whom It May Concern-_

_Let me start off this little journey in time in a box by saying it was all my husband and Marcus' fault. They wanted to do this. I was never one for quaint things. However, like my brother-in-law Rick said, knowing all three of our families, it may be wise, putting all of these things together about our adventures in case one of our descendants screw up. Let me just say to start off with, if the person reading this is considering going on a treasure hunt of any kind, JUST DON'T DO IT. Those ghost and mummy stories- surprise, they're real. The proof is all here, along with a few things, just for the family in general._

_You might have heard my sister's account of our adventures. If you haven't, they're in here, too. I figured it's only fair to give you my side of the story as well. Enjoy._

_Tess Henderson, 1953._

_P.S: I wasn't kidding about that treasure hunting. Stop. Now. Look through all of this and learn from our mistakes._

The father and children looked at each other, shrugged, and glanced back at the notebook. They opened to the first page, their curiosity getting the better of them.

* * *

_**1905, North Carolina:**_

"But Dad! I don't wanna go!" Ten-year-old Tess Carnahan yelled at her father, who was leading her to the entrance of the grounds to the school he had recently enrolled her in.

Her father, Richard, laughed. "I know, darling, but be lucky you're going anyway. This is a privilege compared to some of the things that kids your age are doing. Besides, you'll meet friends here!"

"How is it going to last, dad? You're only here for business!" Tess whined.

"Be hopeful, kid. I'll see you later." with that, her father walked away.

Tess sighed and went into the school. She knew it was a losing battle- the paperwork and assigned class had already been taken care of. She was headed into Mrs. Wilson's classroom. Handling being the new kid in school was nothing new to her. It had happened far too many times for her liking. She was okay with most of the things attached to it- just not the awkward, 'who are you?' stares she always received. She crossed to one of the empty seats in the back of the room and stared down at the surface of the desk. If she didn't look around, she could avoid them.

"Ah, new kid, huh? Tough break."

Tess frowned and turned, seeing a blonde boy her age. He was looking at her, offering a crooked smile. He had his feet up on his desk, and had an almost-completely eaten apple in his hand closest to the window.

"Who are you?" Tess asked, not knowing why she struck up a conversation with someone she didn't even want to know. He came across as arrogant right off the bat. She _hated_ arrogant people.

"Chase Henderson," he tossed the apple core aside into the trash and offered his hand. "Future cowboy. You?"

Tess smiled at the way he presented himself with 'future cowboy'. "Tess Carnhan. Future I-Have-No clue" she shook his hand.

Chase smiled again. "So, this really is your first day, huh?"

"Yeah," Tess nodded.

"I remember my first day here. I hated it," the blonde's southern accent came through in the statement. "I might as well try to make yours halfway decent."

Tess smiled softly. Maybe he wasn't so bad, after all. This was a first- making a friend on the first day. She liked the idea of that. She had no idea that that day, she hadn't met a boy who would be a friend for a couple of years- she had met the first of her lifelong friends.

* * *

**_French Foreign Legion Camp, 1919:_**

Tess flinched, watching another injured soldier get dragged into the tent. She was tending to a young man who had a bullet graze his shoulder the previous day. She silently muttered to herself, wondering why she had followed her father, once again, and taken the nursing job a family friend had offered. She was never a fan of the sight of blood, but at the same time, she felt like she had a sense of duty to the soldiers. That was one of the many things she had inherited from her father, who had taken to being one of the general's assistants. She muttered 'why did I even come here?' one last time and turned to leave for another tent when two men dragging a groaning third man behind them, came bursting through the tent entrance.

"Nurse Carnahan, help this man! He's been shot. We got the bullet out, but he needs to be patched up." One of the soldiers ordered, all but shoving the man into her arms.

She groaned and pulled the man over to one of the empty beds and maneuvered him onto it. She left to get bandages, and came back. She finally got a good look at him. She'd admit it, he was a decent looking man. Reddish, light brown hair, well built, tall, he would've been several of her friends' types. She sighed and went over to him, getting ready to patch him up, as instructed.

The man opened his eyes wearily and blinked at her. "Take it easy, will ya, Sweet Cheeks?"

Tess arched an eyebrow at him, then shrugged it off. "I always do, Private…?"

"Don't call me Private. I'm Rick- Rick O'Connell."

Tess smiled weakly. "Alright, Rick. My name's Tess Carnahan. I'll take good care of you, I swear."

Rick scrunched up his nose, looking tired as Hell. "I'm gonna hold you to that, and I'm gonna pass out as you do it."

Tess frowned. "I uh, wouldn't suggest that, Rick."

"Oh, relax, the bullet's out, it was a graze, and I haven't slept in days. I'll be fine. Promise," Rick replied.

Tess went to object, but a moment later, Rick was out cold. It didn't look like he had passed out from pain or anything, so she took that as a win so far. "… I hope so, Rick." She muttered before going to work on getting the bandages on his abdomen.

* * *

_**1923, Outside Cairo:**_

Tess gaped at the amount of injured soldiers in the tent she had been assigned to. The attack on Hamunaptra had gone horribly wrong, apparently, for various reasons. Her heart sunk. The number of bodies inside had almost doubled since last night. Where was Rick, where was Beni? The pair of them had gotten hurt enough to have been in her care plenty of times. She had no issue calling them friends. She was terrified at the fact she knew they were on that mission, but hadn't shown, at all. "Where are you…?" Her heart skipped a beat when she spotted a familiar face being helped towards the tent. "RICK!" She ran out of the tent and threw her arms around him, suddenly aware it took him a few moments to respond, but still returned the hug whole-heartedly.

"Hey, Tessie," Rick practically croaked.

Tess frowned. "What's wrong, are you hurt?"

"No, just… dehy…rated." Rick replied.

Tess looked at the man who was supporting him. "Bring him into the tent. I'll get water."

The soldier nodded and went inside with Rick as Tess headed to do her self- assigned task. She went back inside, got to Rick, and barely gave Rick a moment to react to the fact she had reached him before she tilted the cup of water into his bottom lip so he was forced to start drinking. Rick took it from her and nodded after a moment. He exhaled sharply and leaned back into the pillows. "Damn…" He breathed.

"What happened?" Tess asked.

Rick shook his head. "A bad, bad battle for us, then after… well, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. Just make sure you keep Beni the Hell away from me."

Tess frowned. That had come out of nowhere. Sure, she wasn't too fond of Beni, being that most of his greeting hugs ended up with his hands on her behind, but she ignored her dislike because he and Rick were close. "Um…"

"He left me to die, Tessie. I was in a pinch, and he turned, ran, and when I had the chance to get shelter from being shot or stabbed, he locked me out." Rick replied, taking another drink.

Tess frowned. "What?"

Rick nodded.

Tess scoffed. "… Bastard!"

Rick snorted, then put the cup in his lap and smirked at her. "That so?" He asked. "I never woulda thought he was a sneaky, backstabbing bastard."

Tess looked at him, and the smirk that was now on his face made her remember Chase. How long had it been since they touched base? Years. Part of her relief dissipated at that, but when she saw Rick was looking at her like he knew she was suddenly miles away, she snapped out of it. He was her friend too, he was here in the now, and he had apparently almost died. That was enough to be happy about. " I'm glad you're okay, no matter what Beni did," She replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other people to tend to."

Rick winked at her, then watched as she started to weave her way between the beds to check on others. "Enjoy yourself, Sweet Cheeks!"

"Thought I told you not to call me that!" Tess called over her shoulder.

"It's fun to annoy you!" Rick called back. When she merely waved him off, Rick just laughed, took another drink and leaned back again. All in all, despite the weird, howling face and almost dying, it was a pretty damn good day.


	2. The Beginning

**Cairo, Egypt, 1926: **

"Hello Tess"

Tess looked up as she walked into the Cairo Museum. "Oh, hi, Evy" she noticed her little sister looked absolutely devastated. "What is it?"

"What? Oh, nothing. What're you reading?" Evy asked, seeing the book in Tess' hands.

Tess held up the book.

Evy read the title. " The Lone Cowboy" she laughed. "Honestly, Tess. When are you going to give up on those two? You may never see them again"

"How can I, Evy? Chase was my best friend, and his brother was no different"

"Suit yourself. Have fun reading" Evy smiled before walking into another room.

Tess looked around. Museums weren't ever a favorite of hers. She was more of a girl that lived for the present and adventures, not history, and the friends she had over the years would agree. Something caught her eye and she slid off the table she had sat on moments before and went over to the showcase it was in. It was a large gold necklace with a sapphire stone in the center. Tess raised her eyebrows and nodded, impressed. That was until she heard her sister shriek in fright. She glanced at a sword that was also on display, grabbed it and ran into the room that the shriek came from, sighing and putting down the sword when she saw her older brother Jonathan laughing hysterically.

"Oh John, have you no respect for the dead?!" Evy demanded.

"Of course I do but sometimes, I'd rather like to join them" Jonathan replied, waving to the mummy as Evy positioned it back into place.

"John…" Tess sighed, going over to the sarcophagus to help him out of it. "Honestly, you two! I'm happy we reunited a year and a half ago, but honestly, do you ever stop?"

"Nope, which is why we love you, sister. You slow us down" Jonathan replied and kissed Tess on the forehead.

"Get away!" Tess laughed, backing off.

Jonathan laughed again, then looked at Evy. "I found something you may want to have a look at, Evy"

Tes sighed. Another one of his 'digs'. _He should just give it up and call it 'pilferings'. _She started towards the door again, not at all interested. Not knowing why, she suddenly wondered where her old friend Rick was. He wasn't thrilled that she hadn't asked his last name before she left. He had told her before, but now she had forgotten it.

After a while, Evy and Jonathan burst through the doors. Evy glanced at Tess. "Teresa, get up. We're going to find a man who knows a few things about Hamunaptra"

Tess fell out of her chair. Evy's mouth was the last place she thought she'd ever hear Hamunaptra come out of.

"Are you alright?" Evy asked.

"Uh… sure. Fine. Who- Who are we going to see about it?" Tess asked, getting up and brushing herself off.

"Some O'Connell fellow" Jonathan replied.

Tess smirked. "You mean the guy you stole whatever you found off of"

Evy's jaw dropped. "You what?!" she turned on Jonathan.

Jonathan glared at Tess. "Thanks"

"Any time" Tess replied.

----

"You lied to me" Evy growled when they had reached the prison they had to go to to see O'Connell.

Tess rolled her eyes. Her siblings had been at it the whole time.

"I lie to everybody, what makes you so special?" Jonathan asked.

Tess coughed to cover up her laugh. He had a point.

"I am your sister" Evy replied.

Jonathan pointed at Tess. "So is she, you don't see her complaining"

Now Tess couldn't help it and started laughing until she saw the cell they were being led to. It looked different than the others. More guarded. "What do you keep in here? A lion?" she asked.

"You could say that" the warden replied. "You could say a wild boar too"

Tess sighed. There was something that she just didn't like about the guy.

"What exactly is this man is prison for?" Evy asked, coming over to them.

"For this, I do not know. When you were coming, I asked him that myself"

"And?" Tess crossed her arms.

"He said he was just looking for a good time," the warden pointed upward just as two men dragged O'Connell forward.

"Whoa!" Tess stepped back after the vibration of O'Connell hitting the bars of the cell hit her since she was leaning against it. She studied the man for a moment, noticing that he looked familiar.

"This… this is the man that you stole it from?" Evy asked Jonathan.

"Yes, yes, exactly so why don't we go sniff out a spot of tiffin-"

"Who are you?" O'Connell demanded. "And who are the two broads?"

"Broads?" Evy asked with disgust.

"Well, I'm just sort of a local missionary chap, spreading the good word, and these two are my sisters"

"Oh well, maybe she's not a total loss" O'Connell frowned.

"I BEG your pardon?" Evy demanded.

"Ask him about the box" Jonathan hissed.

"Uh yes, we may've found your puzzle box, and we've come to ask you about it…"

"No" O'Connell shook his head.

"Huh?" Jonathan glanced at him.

"No, you came to ask me about Hamunaptra"

"How do you know the box pertains to Hamunaptra?"

"Because that's where I was when I found it. I was there. Me and two other buddies." O'Connell replied. "Well, and the rest of the Legion, but those two were the only ones I cared about- I hate one of them now, haven't seen the other in three years" O'Connell replied. "Now, what about it?"

Jonathan stepped forward. "How do we know that's not a lot of pig's swallow?"

"Do I know you from somewhere?" O'Connell asked.

"Oh, no, I just have one of those faces" Jonathan replied with a chuckle, but it only lasted a few seconds because O'Connell went wide eyed and punched Jonathan in the face.

At first, Tess was floored at the behavior, but as the two guards hit O'Connell, why he was familiar hit her. "Rick?!" she exclaimed.

Rick glared at Tess, then his jaw dropped. "Tessie?!"

"Wait- you two know each other?" Evy asked.

"Long story" Rick and Tess replied at the same time.

"Actually, no. I can tell you one thing: She was one of my buddies I was telling you about. The one who acted as a guy" Rick replied.

Tess stared at him. "I hate you!"

Rick made a face at her.

Evy glanced at her. "Wait- you too? You were both at Hamunaptra?"

Rick grinned. "Yeah, we were there"

"You swear?" Evy narrowed her eyes.

"Every damn day" Rick replied.

"No, I didn't mean-"

"I know what you meant. Seti's place, Valley of the Dead"

"Could you tell me how to get there?" Evy asked. "I mean, the exact location?"

"You wanna know?" Rick asked

Tess frowned, noticing Rick was starting to smirk. The smirk that had always meant he was up to no good.

"Well, yes" Evy nodded, leaning forward.

"Do ya really wanna know?" Rick asked.

"Yes" Evy said, getting closer after Rick motioned for her to do so.

Tess coughed when Rick grabbed Evy's chin and kissed her. "Then get me the hell outta here!" Rick yelled. "Tess, nice seeing ya again!" he called sarcastically when the guards started dragging him inside. "Yeah… you … too?"

"Where are they taking him?" Evy asked.

"To be hanged. Apparently, he had a VERY good time" the Warden replied.

Evy looked at Tess. "We have to do something"

Tess nodded. "We have to stop that hanging"


	3. Old Friends

**A/N: okay, next chapter up, yay, and this time around for this trilogy, I actually have an actress that you can imagine Tess looking like. I imagine her as Michelle Ryan. Alright, moving on.**

Tess started pacing back and forth in the room the warden was in. She kept glancing at Rick down below, getting the noose tightened around his neck. "Come on, Rick. Hang in there"

"Two. Two hundred pounds!" Evy continued to try and bargain with the warden.

"Proceed!" the warden yelled.

Tess gripped the wall to try and control herself and avoid punching the man in the face. She knew men like this drove a hard bargain. She just didn't know it would be that much. She smiled, hearing Rick's last request.

"Yeah, loosen the knot and let me go" Rick told the executioner.

The executioner looked up at the warden and said something in Arabic.

"Yahemar! Of course we don't let him go!" the warden yelled back.

"Oh come _on_!" Tess cried. "You're not getting anywhere, just let him go!"

Evy cut her older sister off. Five hundred pounds!"

Tess whirled on Evy. "WHAT?!" she went to the warden's right side

The warden held up his hand after saying something in Arabic. "And what else?" he asked Evy, putting her hand on her knee. "I'm a very lonely man"

Tess coughed, then let the knife she had tucked under her sleeve drop about an inch so it scratched his hand. She had hidden it in her sleeve for easy access if something went wrong and trouble started, and that action was trouble in her book.

"Ah!" the warden pulled his hand back and looked at her.

Tess blinked and smiled innocently so the warden was distracted when she moved her arm so the dagger went back up her sleeve. "Sorry, did I do that? Long nails" she held up her hand to prove the statement.

The warden glared at her again when the prisoners started laughing.

Yalla Tlak!" the warden yelled.

Tess looked at Evy as she bolted upright, then realized what the command must've meant. "NO!" they both yelled, watching as Rick fell. She didn't know why, but she grinned when she saw Rick starting to kick around and gag. "He's alive!" she turned to Evy.

"His neck did not break! The girl is right! Now we must watch him strangle to death!"

"He knows the location to Hamunaptra!" Evy told the warden.

"Oh god" Tess slammed her head into her hands. "What is she doing?!" she muttered.

"You lie!" the warden argued.

"I would never!" Evy replied.

"Are you telling me this filthy, godless son of a pig knows where the city of the dead is?"

Evy pointed at Tess. "So does-"

Tess quickly stepped on her foot. "Yes, he does, and I'm sure we can work something out with you about it!" she winked at Evy when her sister sent her a confused glance.

"Truly, he does?" the warden asked.

Tess nodded. "Yes"

Evy caught on. "And if you cut him down, we'll give you… ten percent!"

"Fifty percent" the warden argued.

"Twenty" Evy reasoned.

"Forty!" the warden pointed at her.

"Thirty!" Evy grinned.

"Twenty five!"

"Ah! Deal!" Evy pointed at him.

The warden paused. "Ah! Cut him down!"

The executioner groaned before cutting the rope.

When he hit the ground Rick looked up at Tess and Evy.

While Evy just looked proud, Tess grinned. "Another near death experience, ay?" she called.

----

Giza Port, Cairo:

Tess rolled her eyes when she felt her hair hit her back another time. "Rick, touch my hair again, and die" Tess growled playfully as they made their way to the ship.

Rick laughed, continuing to play with her hair. "I can't help it. It's like, addicting! You know how many years it's been since I saw it this long? I'm the one that hacked it off!" Rick replied as they came behind Evy and Jonathan.

"This from the man who cut all of his off just now, making me have flashbacks" Tess patted his back.

"…Filthy, rude, complete scoundrel, I don't like him one bit!" Evy continued her conversation with Jonathan.

"Anyone I know?" Rick asked.

Evy and Jonathan whirled around.

Tess had to cover her mouth to hold back the laugh that came after seeing Evy's expression at being caught as well as surprised about the haircut he had gotten.

"Oh, um… hello" Evy put her bags down.

"Smashing day for the start of an adventure, eh, O'Connell?" Jonathan patted Rick's chest.

"Yeah, yeah. Smashing" Rick nodded, pulling back his jacket to check for his wallet.

"Oh, no! I never steal from a partner, partner!" Jonathan punched Rick playfully.

"Heh" Rick chuckled. "That reminds me. Now hard feelings about the…" he made a punching motion.

"Oh no, happens all the time" Jonathan shook his head.

"Mr. O'Connell, can you look me in the eye and guarantee me this isn't some kind of a a flimflam, because if it is, I'm warning you-"

"You're warning me? Lady, I told you your sister was with me and she instantly looked away when I mentioned her with Hamunaptra" Rick put his hand on Tess' shoulder. "Let me tell you something. All of us believed in the legend, then we got there, and all we found was sand and blood." Rick replied. "Let me get your bags" he bent down and picked up two of Jonathan and Evy's bags. "Tess!" he called.

Tess exchanged looks with Evy and Jonathan before running after Rick. "Yes?"

"What's with your brother repeating words… and with all of you and touching people? I got patted twice and punched once in the span of a minute. That's odd"

"I wish I could answer that for you" Tess replied with a shrug.

----

That night:

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? Little Tessie Carnhan, all grown up"

Tess turned to the American stranger behind her. "Look pal, I-" she turned, looking at the man. Then she grinned, recognizing the smile, eyes, and messy hair of the stranger, who wasn't quite a stranger. It was Chase Henderson. "-Have missed you so much!" she jumped into his arms.

Chase gladly accepted the embrace, getting a good grip on her before giving her a peck on the lips. That was how close they were. He could kiss her, and it would still be considered completely friendly. He let go of her. "How've ya been?" he asked.

"Good. You?" Tess asked, a grin still plastered on her face.

"Fine" Chase replied before hugging her again. "I can't believe it's you"

"Same here" Tess hugged him again. "I haven't seen you in years"

"Yeah, I know" Chase nodded. "I can't believe this. You have long hair, too!" he flicked her hair with his pointer finger for a moment.

"Not you too!" Tess smiled. "Another old friend just did that earlier.

"Hey Henderson, we interrupting something, fella?" someone asked a few feet away.

"No, Burns. I'm comin'. I just ran into an old friend" Chase replied. "Come on, I have a couple of pals I want you to meet". He lead her over to a poker table where three brunette men were. She realized one was Jonathan, but didn't recognize the other. "Tess, this is Burns, and the guy in front of him is Daniels"

Daniels smiled at her. "Well hi, pretty lady.. Are you and our pal here an item?"

Jonathan and Chase both coughed.

"No" Tess shook her head. "Just good, long lost friends". She smiled at Rick when he came out of a room.

"Oh. O'Connell, sit down. We could use another player."

"No. I only gamble with my life. Never my money" Rick replied.

Tess smiled. "Isn't that the truth"

Rick winked at her.

Chase nodded at Rick. "is he yours?"

"Romantically, no. Friendly, yes. It's kind of the same deal with you, now. Long lost friends get reunited"

"Aww, you're gonna make me cry" Chase grinned.

Tess punched his arm playfully.

"You never gamble?" Daniels asked, dealing more cards. "What if I was to bet you five hundred dollars we get to Hamunaptra 'fore you?" he asked.

"You're looking for Hamunaptra?" Rick asked, voicing the question that crossed Tess' mind.

"Damn straight we are" Chase replied.

"And who says we are?" Rick asked.

"He does" the three Americans replied and pointed at Jonathan.

Jonathan laughed nervously.

"Well, how 'bout it? Is it a bet?" Daniels asked.

"Alright, you're on" Rick nodded.

"What makes you so confident, sir?" a man by the Americans asked.

"What makes you?" Rick asked.

"We got us a man who's actually been there" Chase replied.

"What a coincidence, because my sister and O'Connell-"

Rick rammed his bag into Jonathan to shut him up.

Jonathan cleared his throat, then looked around. "Whose play is it? Is it my play? I thought I'd just, uh-" he looked at the Americans.

"Gentleman, we got us a wager. Evening, Jonathan" Rick squeezed Jonathan's shoulder hard, making the man wince.

"Night" Jonathan waved.

Tess took her turn. "Jon, there'll be a time when I may have a choice to kill you. I will, and I'll enjoy it" she said before kissing his forehead. She smiled at the Americans. "Night, boys. Nice meeting you" she went in the direction that O'Connell did.

O'Connell met her on the other side of the wall. "Any bright ideas for this one?"

"No" Tess replied. "All I know is that their inside man better not be Beni"


	4. Did it Again

**A/N: To make this chap flow a bit better, I switched the order of Rick finding Beni then talking to Evy…**

--

"Oh, hi Rick" Tess smiled when she saw her friend turn the corner of the ship.

"There you are. I need to talk to you. Now" Rick growled.

"Why?" Tess raised her eyebrows.

"Because you did it _again_" Rick replied.

"Did what again?" Tess tilted her head.

"I always told you, Tess. You're psychic!" Rick replied.

Tess laughed. "Rick, that's ridiculous. You know I'm not."

Rick laughed. "Really? What about that time in the war? We were gonna get ambushed, and then you turned around because 'you had a weird feeling', then the next thing you know, those odd guys, desert people, whatever you call them came outta nowhere, the exact direction you looked? What about that time on the transport boat? You didn't wanna go on it, and I stayed with you 'cause I had nothing better to do, next thing we know we're watching the thing blow up, and now guess who I just ran into?!"

"Your… mother?" Tess shrugged, shaking her head.

"Beni" Rick replied.

Tess frowned. "What?"

Rick pulled her over to the side of the boat and pointed at someone who was splashing around in the water. "Beni" he confirmed. "Why didn't you hear him?"

"Evy's been ranting about something, and then there were the waves hitting the boat. He was always quiet. Wait, is he the guy that Chase and the others hired?"

"Chase?" Rick asked.

"Henderson" Tess replied.

"Oh. Yeah, apparently." Rick nodded.

Chase came out from one of the hallways on the ship. "Hey Tessie!" he called to her.

"Excuse me" Tess patted Rick's shoulder. "Chase?" she addressed the other man.

"I need your help with somethin'," Chase told her.

"Should I be afraid?" Tess asked.

Chase paused. "…Maybe"

"What is it?"

Chase threw his arm around her. "Remember you said you owe me a favor?"

"Oh god. Yeah, I'm afraid" Tess nodded.

Chase looked at her. "Come on, Tessie. I met this girl on the ship, and I need you to put in a good word about me"

"To a total stranger? Uh, no" Tess turned to walk away.

Chase jumped in front of her and stuck out his lower lip. "Please?"

"No!" Tess smiled, trying to get away from him.

"Hey, Tess… I have a question as well" Rick said, coming over into the hallway.

"Why must everyone come to me?" Tess muttered. "Rick, what did you do now?" she shoved Chase's arm down to go over to him.

Chase smirked and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall.

"Alone" Rick added.

The American rolled his eyes before leaving.

Rick looked back at Tess. "Why's your sister so… uptight?"

"Oh, the girl's uptight when the guy kisses her unexpectedly in the middle of a prison!" Tess' jaw dropped.

Rick frowned "You saw that?" he started walking towards the side of the ship.

"Kinda hard to miss, I mean, come on, how-" she stopped when Rick put his arm out. "What?"

Rick pointed at the floor where a few wet smudges were. "Do those look like footprints to you?"

Tess looked at them. "Kinda."

Rick looked over the side of the ship. "Beni's still there… Evelyn"

"Huh?" Tess titled her head.

"Learn to hear" Rick growled. "I think your sister is in trouble"

"Ugh. Men, drop everything to save the damsel in… what about my sister?"

Rick pointed at the smudges again. "Footprints. That way. Evy's room, also that way"

"You're paranoid" Tess announced.

"Well half the time when I'm paranoid, I'm right." Rick walked off.

Tess rolled her eyes. "Completely insane" she shook her head before going off her own way.

Chase met her halfway. "Back to my problem"

"Chase, come on. I'm not gonna 'put in a good word for you' to a complete-"

"DUCK!" Chase yelled, seeing something in the distance.

"Complete duck? What?" Tess frowned.

"No, duck!" Chase replied and tackled her to the ground, just missing gunfire that hit the wall where they had been seconds before.

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Tess demanded.

"I'm not waitin' around to find out, and neither are you. That's two favors you owe me, now. I just saved your ass!" Chase replied with a smirk, then jumped back when a piece of large cloth that had caught fire nearly came down on them. "Somethin' ain't right here!" he told her.

"You think?!" Tess yelled over the commotion that had started.

"Always do. Follow me!" Chase ran down to the end of the deck with Tess at his heels, meeting Daniels and Burns, who were behind a group of fallen objects, firing at the men dressed in black who had showed up. "Who are these guys?!"

"Hard to forget, leave it at that!" Tess replied. She looked around, and seeing that her only option was Chase's second gun, still in his holster, she grabbed it and started shooting at the men who had begun to attack.

"Hey Tessie, I know you've been back with your brother and sister for a while, but I think American style shooting is the only way to go!" Chase yelled.

Tess laughed. "Fire as many bullets as possible and try to hit something? You got it!" she did just that until she saw Jonathan run up behind them. "John! What're you doing?!"

"Escaping, in which I'd like to do now if you don't mind!" Jonathan replied. "Are you coming?!"

Both siblings ducked when a man who was on fire came bursting out of one of the rooms.

Chase quickly moved his arm and shot the man since he had gone to attack Jonathan.

"Thanks mate. Nice shooting!" Jonathan grinned. "And did I panic, I think not!"

Tess squinted to try and see what Jonathan tossed up in the air a moment later, but failed, because another burst of flame came out of nowhere and startled him, causing him to fall overboard.

"I think your brother has the right idea!" Chase yelled.

"Same here!" Tess nodded. With that, both of them followed by the others jumped overboard.

A couple of minutes later they had separated without knowing it. Tess looked around to find she was with Rick and her siblings, and Chase and the other Americans were on the other side of the river.

"We've lost everything, all of our tools, all of the equipment, all my clothes!" Evy complained.

"Eve, look at it like this…" Tess grabbed Evy's shoulders. "We didn't lose our lives!"

"But-but-" Evy began, but was cut off.

"Hey! O'Connell! Carnhan!"

Tess froze. She would know that voice anywhere. She turned, and sure enough, the voice belonged to who she thought it did: Beni.

"Looks to me like I've got all the horses!" Beni yelled.

"Hey Beni!" Rick and Tess yelled. "Looks to us like you're on the wrong side of the ri-ver!"

Beni laughed for a moment before looking around. When he realized they were right, he kicked the water.

"Ugh" Tess collapsed on the ground. "That's the… third time we've had to do that, right?" she looked at Rick.

"Fourth." Rick corrected. "Remember the S.S Voyager?"

"Oh yeah" Tess nodded.

"You mean this has happened to you before?!" Evy shrieked.

"Yeah" Rick nodded.

"Pretty much" Tess agreed.

Evy sighed. "This… is going to be a very interesting trip, isn't it?"

"You bet"


	5. The Race

"Really, no thank you. I'm fine with what I have now" Tess smiled at several of the female villagers of the small town the group had stopped at. She and Evy had gone there to buy clothes and gave Evy a makeover, which Tess refused when they offered it to her. Masquerading as a man for a number of years to keep up her father's dream had really put her off of makeup, and this time was no different. She spotted Rick and Jonathan and trotted over to them, leaving Evy alone with the women. She smiled, hearing Jonathan's current exchange with one of the men.

"I only want five, not the whole bloody herd!"

"So how are things going?" Tess asked.

Rick motioned at Jonathan. "You have to ask?" he looked at Jonathan. "Would you just pay the man?!"

"Oh for heaven's sake!" Jonathan turned and pulled money from his wallet. "I can't believe the price of these fleabags!"

Rick and Tess laughed before taking two reigns each and starting to walk off, followed by Jonathan.

"You know, we probably could've gotten them for free. All we had to do was give 'em your sister" Rick pointed out, which earned him a whack in the stomach from Tess. "Not you! Your other sister. The obnoxious one"

"Yes, awfully tempting, wasn't it?" Jonathan looked at Rick, not noticing Evy had approached them until he saw Rick's stunned face. He looked where Rick was looking and saw his sister in the new clothes.

"Awfully…" Rick murmured.

Tess tried to hold back the snort at both her sister's appearance and Rick's reaction.

One of the camel's Rick was leading grunted and Rick patted it's nose.

He and Evy started leading the group off in another direction and Tess, Jonathan, and the Warden stayed in the back.

Jonathan leaned over to Tess. "Tessie, you see what I see?"

"Definitely"

"I believe a bit of love is in the air" Jonathan nodded.

"And who better than us to make sure it happens for our little sister?" Tess replied.

They grinned evilly at each other before catching up to the said two people.

--

Tess rolled her eyes when Jonathan continued his rant about not liking camels. He had been doing it since they started on their way to find Hamunaptra, and hadn't stopped since.

"Never did like camels. Filthy buggers. They smell, they bite, they spit..."

Tess squirmed when the Warden spat at the ground, but it still barely missed her.

"Disgusting" Jonathan continued.

Tess raised her eyebrows. _Him or the camel?_

"I think they're adorable" Evy replied and patted the one she was riding.

"That makes one of us" Tess smirked, then rolled her eyes when the Warden started singing, then to her disgust, spat again. Not wanting to see the action being done again, to her surprise, she got the camel to speed up so she came next to Rick.

"Havin' fun back there?" he grinned.

"Ha ha" Tess growled sarcastically.

The trip continued well into the night exactly like this. A few sarcastic remarks, a few nice conversations, more of the Warden singing and spitting, otherwise it was just quiet.

At one point during the night, Tess noticed that Evy was asleep and kept leaning towards Rick. She was fully against him at one point until Rock slowly pushed her upright.

His camel grunted. "Shh!" he whispered to it.

Tess giggled at both of his actions.

Rick pointed at her. "You too!"

Tess pointed to the Warden, who was also unconscious, but snoring loudly. "Tell that to him" she smiled, seeing the Warden's snoring had woken Jonathan up, and she couldn't help but go into a fit of laugher when her brother whacked the Warden with the stick he had, and the Warden woke up muttering "No more goat soup"

Both he and Jonathan were asleep again a moment later.

Rick suddenly became alert and looked around.

Tess looked at him. "What is it?"

"You hear that?" Rick asked without looking at her.

Tess stopped and strained her ears to pick up on any new sounds. "No, what-" she stopped, seeing a few figures on top of a cliff a small distance away from where they were. "You see that?"

"Yeah. They've been following us" Rick nodded. "I guess they have horses or somethin'"

"You know they've been following us but you didn't say anything?" Tess demanded.

"I didn't think much of it. They're not attacking or anything" Rick explained.

"Hm" Tess nodded. "I guess you're right"

"I'm always right, Tessie. You should know that by now" Rick replied playfully.

--

They had kept moving until morning, and now a group of people were coming their way.

"Hey, you think it's them from last night?" Rick looked at Tess, then frowned, seeing her asleep. "What the- Tess!" he hit her arm gently.

Tess opened her eyes. "Huh? What?"

"Check these guys out. You think they're the guys from before?" Rick asked, nodding at the group in front of them.

"No. Chase is with them. It's Beni and the others" Tess replied, seeing her friend at the side of the group.

"Great" Rick muttered.

They continued riding towards them until Beni spoke up.

"Good morning my friends!" the Hungarian called.

"We're not quite friends, pal" Tess muttered as Rick nodded politely.

"What about Henderson?" Rick looked at her.

"Except for him, happy?" Tess frowned playfully at him.

Rick winked at her before they closed the gap.

Chase made his horse go next to Tess. "So, did ya have fun travelin' with your family and the weird fat guy?"

"Did you have fun traveling with the idiots?" Tess shot back.

Chase grinned, then looked at Daniels when he broke the silence between the others.

"What the Hell we doin'?" Daniels demanded.

"Patience, my good barat'm, patience" Beni told him.

Chase leaned forward. " 'Bar' what?"

"You expect me to know?" Tess whispered.

Chase gave her a pat on the back before looking at Rick. "Remember our bet, O'Connell. First one to the city, five hundred cash bucks"

"You guys made a bet?" Tess asked, looking from Chase to Rick.

"You didn't even expect that? Tessie, it's like you don't know us at all" Chase smirked.

Daniels looked at Beni. "Hundred of them bucks is yours if you help us win that bet"

"Oh, my pleasure" Beni nodded. He looked at Rick. "Hey O'Connell, nice camel"

Tess rolled her eyes. "I really do hate that man" she smiled when Rick smirked and patted the animal. "Nice one" she muttered.

Rick heard her and nodded, then looked at the sunset. "Get ready for it"

Tess looked around. We're here already?

Evy saw her sister's puzzled expression. "Ready for what?"

"We're about to be shown the way" Rick explained.

Everyone watched in awe as the sunrise revealed part of the Lost City.

"Would you look at that," Chase breathed.

"Can you believe it?" Daniels scoffed.

"Hamunaptra" Burns smirked.

Rick sighed. "Here we go again"

In a moment, everyone had begun to race towards the area.

Chase looked at Tess a couple of minutes later, since they had remained neck and neck for most of the race so far. "I got another bet, just between you and me"

"This time, I know I'm afraid" Tess smiled.

"You get there before me, you don't owe me any more favors, I get there before you, you gotta buy me a round"

Tess shook her head. Of course he mean a round of drinks. Typical for him. "You have yourself a bet"

Chase made his horse speed up. "Then may the best _person_ win,"

Tess leaned forward again, making her camel speed up as well. "I intend to"


	6. Longer Friendship Wins

"Well look at that, I did" Tess smiled, walking over to Chase on his horse when he reached the first few pillars indicating that they had reached the city. 

Chase smiled. "You're really annoyin', ya know that?" 

"I aim to please" Tess replied. 

Chase dismounted his horse before going over to her and throwing his arm over her shoulders. "It's impossible to be mad at you. Fine, no more favors"

"Evy and Jon would beg to differ… Rick, too" 

Chase laughed, then stopped when they got closer to Beni and Rick who were staring each other down. His hand dropped. "Maybe we shouldn't act so friendly right now…" 

"Yeah" Tess agreed. 

They walked towards the group more, and then Chase stopped and grinned. 

Tess looked at him. "What?" 

"I have another wager" Chase replied. He pointed to a raised area in the carved rock that looked like a room, and when Tess realized that it was the room that Beni had shut himself in and abandoned Rick and her in, she knew it was indeed a room. "First one to the top of that thing owes the other a favor again" 

Tess smiled. That was all Chase was about. Bets and favors, but again, that's what she adored about him. "Fine. That shows were kinda rivals" 

"Exactly. On the count of three, we start, okay?" 

"Yeah" Tess nodded. 

"One… two… three!" 

Both of them ran for the room, dodging and jumping over various other statues and whatnot. Tess finally got to the top of the thing and panted, trying to get her breath back, not bothering to see if she had gotten there first. 

"What took ya so long?" 

Tess looked up from the ground and saw Chase smirking at her. "Wha?" 

Chase grinned and twirled his gun. "Back to owing me one favor. Man, I'm good" 

"Oh big whoop, you're in better shape than I am" Tess replied.

Chase smiled. 

"Well, at least one of us Carnhan can win a race!" Jonathan yelled up at them since he had seen the whole thing. 

"Shut up, Jon!" Tess yelled at him.

Chase grinned. "I like your brother" 

"I wonder why" Tess rolled her eyes, watching as Evy beckoned Jonathan over to help set up some of the equipment Rick had managed to save as the Americans started setting up their camp. 

After a smile while, Chase and Tess noticed that Evy and Jonathan had come across a mirror of sorts and Jonathan was shining it.

Chase looked at Tess. "You're in the Egypt-crazy family, what're they doing?" 

"I have no idea" Tess shook her head. 

Chase looked behind them, since the Egyptologist with him and the other Americans had followed them up onto the room, but obviously at a slower pace. He had even cursed at them when he got up, complaining about youth having too much energy. "Hey, they know somethin' we don't?" 

The Egyptologist looked at him. "They're led by a woman. What does a woman know?" 

Tess turned to him. "Do you not see the woman standing right here!" she marched towards him. "You are so gonna-" 

Chase grabbed her arms to keep her from throttling the man. "Easy, Tessie. He didn't really mean it" he turned to keep enough strength on Tess to hold her down. "Did you, sir?" he raised his eyebrows at the Egyptologist. 

"Of course I did!" The Egyptologist replied. 

"Yeah, he's gonna die!" Tess growled, breaking free of Chase., She took two steps towards him, but found herself pinned to the ground by Chase for the second time in twenty-four hours. 

"Damn it, Tessie! Get a hold of yourself!" he turned her over and gave her a weak smack on the cheek, which earned him a hard slap to his. "OW!" He pulled her upright. "Okay, we're going to see your _nice_ family so you can behave _nice_ and forget about what this guy said" Chase said and practically dragged her down the stairs and over to Rick and the others. "I think this belongs to you" he said before walking back to the American's site to see Daniels and Burns. 

"Was that second slap yours?" Rick asked with a smile. 

"Yes it was" She saw the Warden had his hands up dismissively. "What'd you do to him?" 

"Nothin'. Anyway, nice. I heard you slap the guy compared to barely hearing him do it do you" Rick pointed out

"You have good hearing, and Chase didn't really hit hard. Even if he did, he hits like a girl, anyway" Tess explained.

Rick laughed. "Well, you have good timing. We're about to go down there" Rick replied, swinging his leg over the rock slab he was next to. He yanked on the rope. "See ya down there" he got ready to swing down. 

"Hey, look for bugs! I hate bugs!" the Warden told him. 

Rick simply nodded before swinging down into the chamber.

-- 

"Do you realize we're standing inside a room no one has entered in over 3,000 years?" Evy asked when most of the group was now in the chamber. 

"You keep repeating the same thing, just reworded, Ev. Now we're starting to realize it" Tess replied, looking around. She didn't want to admit it, but she was actually amazed at the size of the chamber. Her appreciative moment was ruined when Jonathan reached the bottom of the rope and spoke up. 

"Whew! What is that God-awful stench?" he looked up at the Warden who was still coming down the rope. He sniffed the air and frowned as realization hit him. "Oh"

Tess snorted when he walked next to her. "You're insane" 

"Because I have a good sense of smell?" Jonathan asked. "No, little sister, you're insane for befriending that blond American when you and our father were in America" 

Tess made a face at him, and then looked around when the area was suddenly illuminated. She looked at Evy, seeing that her sister had moved the mirror that caught light from above and reflected it to the other mirrors in the room, lighting it. "Wow" 

"Hey, that is a neat trick" Rick agreed. 

"Oh my god, it's a sah-netjer" Evy murmured after a while of looking around. 

"A what?" Everyone asked. 

"It's a preparation room" Evy explained. 

"Preparation for what?" Rick asked, looking around. Just hearing what it was unsettled him. 

"For entering the afterlife" Evy made sure her voice sounded spooky, adding effect. 

Tess hit her sister's shoulder playfully. "You're enjoying this too much" she announced, then recognized the familiar sound of Rick pulling out one of his many pistols. "He has the right idea" 

"Hey, I hear 'afterlife', I remember what happened a few years back, and so should you, Tess" Rick replied. 

"Did I complain about your action? No" Tess defended herself. 

"Now… entering the afterlife… that would mean, what, exactly?" Rick asked. 

"Mummies, my good son. This is where they made the mummies" Jonathan explained.

Rick led them down one of the hallways. Every so often he looked around, expecting danger. 

The group stopped, hearing an odd sound. 

"What was that?" Tess and Jonathan asked simultaneously when the sound had stopped. 

"Sounds like… bugs" Rick replied, raising his eyebrows. 

The word 'bugs' was passed down the line, just to annoy and scare the Warden. 

"What do you mean bugs? I hate bugs!" the Warden said, looking around. 

"We've heard" Tess muttered. 

They continued down the hallway until they came to a turn and slipped inside the new hallway that led to a room with a strange statue in the middle. 

"The statue of Anubis" Evy explained as they approached it. "The secret compartment should be hidden somewhere inside here" 

The group started looking around when another strange sound was heard, different from the one Rick had said was bugs. It sounded like more of a moaning. 

Rick gave his torch to Evy and went against the statue. When he drew his gun, Tess, Jonathan and the Warden followed his lead and drew their own. Rick simply looked at them before they all swung around to face the other side of the statue. 

A moment later, Tess jumped, finding herself staring down the barrel of a gun. She frowned when she realized it was Chase's. 

Chase sighed. "You scared the bejesus outta us!" he lowered his gun. 

"Likewise" Rick nodded without putting his down. 

"Hey, that's my tool kit!" Burns took a step forward, and all the guns went back up again. 

Tess' eyes narrowed and her jaw dropped when Chase smirked as if he was amused he was pointing a gun at her. 

"Okay, perhaps I was mistaken" Burns stepped back. 

Tess tried not to smile. Typical Rick, stealing the most random things so he could get by. She saw that Rick had lowered his guns and lowered her own as everyone else did the same. 

Evy stepped forward. "Well, have a nice day, gentleman. We have a lot of work to be getting along with" 

"Push off! This is our dig site!" the Egyptologist with the Americans exclaimed. 

"We got here first" Evy growled. 

"We call it!" Chase yelled, and the guns were up again. 

"This here's our statue, friend" Burns said. 

"I don't se your name written on it, pal" Rick replied coldly. 

Beni grinned. "Yes, well, there's only five of you, and fifteen of me" 

"Fourteen, actually. Again, Tess is my best friend so I kinda fall under neutral" Cahse muttered. 

The Egyptologist frowned. "There's no neutral! You're with them or us!" 

"Yeah!" The other Americans nodded. 

Chase sighed. "Fine" he turned around and backed up so he stood next to Tess. "Sorry boys. Friends with her longer. Wins every time"

Beni laughed. "Well even with six your odds aren't good" Beni said. 

Rick pointed both of his guns squarely at Beni. "I've had worse" 

"Yeah, me too" Jonathan said. 

Rick risked a moment to look at Jonathan, who raised his eyebrows and nodded. 

"For goodness sake, let's be nice, children. If we're going to play together we must learn to share" she looked at Rick and put her hand on his arm. "There are other places to dig" she said. 

Rick frowned, guessing she was up to something. He looked at the others across from him, smirked, nodded, then lowered his guns. "We'll be seein' ya" 

---

"Ya know Henderson, you have a lot of balls standing up to your pals" Rick announced before taking another swing with his pickaxe at the ceiling of the new room they were in that was directly under the one they had just been in.

"Hey, I said it back there, I'll say it again: I don't care if I get shot. I've been friends with Tess longer than I have with Burns and Daniels combined. The longer friendship always wins" Chase replied, also taking a swing with his own pickaxe. 

"Aww, Chase, I could cry" Tess smiled. 

"Yeah, but if I end up getting shot, know I'm pinning it on you" Chase smirked at her. 

"Gentleman, Tess, I have a plan here, care to listen?" 

"Yeah, sorry" Chase and Rick muttered. 

"Alright" Evy nodded. "According to these hieroglyphics, we're underneath the statue. We should come up right between his legs" Evy explained. 

"When those damn yanks go to sleep- no offense" Jonathan added quickly, looking at Rick and Chase. 

"None taken. Go on" the two men said simultaneously. 

"We'll dig our way up and steal that book right out from under them" Jonathan finished. 

"Are you sure we can find this secret compartment thing?" Rick asked, yanking hard on the pickaxe after he jammed it into the rock above them.

"Oh yes, if those beastly Americans haven't beaten us to it, no offense" Evy said. 

"None taken" Rick nodded. 

"This time some taken" Chase pointed at himself. 

"Nobody cares what you think" Tess smirked at him. 

"Go away!" Chase put his knee up to try and get her off the boxes they were on, but failed. 

Jonathan smiled at their antics before he looked around. "Hey, where'd our smelly little friend go to?"

They all looked around. Sure enough, he was gone. 

They continued trying to break through the ceiling for a while before taking a break. 

Jonathan was off the platform, swinging a pickaxe around as if it was a gold club, and everyone else was sitting on the boxes, talking. 

"So let me get this straight. They ripped out your guts and stuffed them in jars…" 

Chase and Tess gagged. Like Rick, they were still curious about the process and wanted to know more, but it was just too disgusting to hear. 

"They'd take out your heart as well. You know how they took out your brains…" 

"Oh god!" Chase cried, then looked at Tess. "How's your sister saying this without even cringing!" 

"I have no idea" Tess shook her head. 

"Evy, I don't think we need to know this" Jonathan announced. 

"Thank you!" Chase nodded, motioning at him. "No, we don't!"

Evy ignored them. "They'd take a sharp, red-hot poker, stick it up your nose, scramble things up a bit and then rip it out through your nostrils" 

"Make it stop" Chase whined, hitting his head repeatedly on Tess' shoulder. 

"Wish I could" Tess muttered. 

"Oh, that's gotta hurt" Rick said. 

"It's called mummification, you'll be dead when they do this" Evy told him. 

Rick winced, then looked at Jonathan. "For the record, If I don't make it outta here, don't put me down for mummification" 

"Amen!" Chase agreed. 

"Likewise!" Jonathan nodded and took another swing, but this one was different, mostly because of what happened a moment later. 

The group all ducked when something came flying down from the ceiling. They straightened out to see what it was. They slowly approached it. 

"Oh my god, it's a… it's a sarcophagus…" Evy murmured. She looked up. "Buried at the base of Anubis…" she looked back at the sarcophagus. "He must've been someone of great importance…" she looked at Rick. "Or he did something very naughty" 

Rick raised his eyebrows. "Greaaaattttttt" 

---

**A/N: Alright, there's the better reason from the first version as to why Henderson survives, he's not with the other Americans. I'd love reviews for this chapter. **


	7. Not So Stupid Now

"Well, who is it?" Jonathan asked after everyone had tried dusting the sarcophagus off.

"He that shall not be named" Evy replied.

"Well that's helpful" Tess rolled her eyes.

Chase nodded. "Well, if the guys who mummified this guy didn't wanna put his name down, should we really be messin' around with it?"

Jonathan pointed at Chase. "My thoughts exactly"

"We don't know enough to make that choice, yet" Rick replied, then blew on part of the sarcophagus, seeing that an indentation was in it. "This looks like some sort of a lock"

"Well, whoever's in here sure wasn't getting out" Jonathan pointed out.

"Yeah, no kidding" Rick agreed.

"Exactly. Think about that. Should we really be messing with this?" Chase asked.

"What harm is a dead guy gonna do?" Rick asked him before he looked back at the lock. "It'd take us a month to crack into this thing without a key"

Evy frowned. "A key?" she paused, then nodded. " A key! A key! That's what he was talking about!"

"Who was talking about what?" Rick looked at Jonathan, Chase and Tess, who all shrugged, also confused.

"The man on the barge" Evy explained. "The one with the hook. He was looking for a key!" she pulled out the puzzle box and brought it over to the sarcophagus.

"Hey, that's mine!" Jonathan pointed out.

Evy smirked at him before opening the box and lining it up with the markings on the indentation. She looked up and smiled at the other four people with her, but her moment was short lived when they heard someone screaming.

Chase tilted his head. "Hey, that sounds a lot like the fat guy that was with you guys"

Realizing the blonde was right, Rick looked at everyone before drawing his gun and running towards the hallway that they had come through. Everyone followed and crowded around the hallway just in time to see the Warden holding his head, screaming.

"Hey, are you-" Tess began, but jumped back when he nearly plowed her over when he started to run again. Like the others, she winced when he ran right into the dead end in the wall and fell, most likely dead.

"Ouch" Chase cringed.

Tess whacked his stomach.

"What did I do now?! That looked like It hurt, so I said ouch!" Chase argued.

Rick shook his head. "He has a point, and I think he had a point before. I think we should get outta here and make camp for the night. This is getting a bit too eerie for my liking"

"Right" the others nodded.

"So what do you suppose killed him?" Evy asked since the group was sitting around a fire, talking. They had been back on the surface for a couple of hours, yet what happened to the Warden still remained strong in their minds.

"Did you ever see him eat?" Jonathan asked.

Chase laughed. "Well, if he really ate as bad as you just made that sound, I better slow down when I eat, too". He was happy that they had also let him camp with them since the other Americans had pretty much shunned him after he changed sides. He scooted over when Rick came to sit with them.

"Henderson, you chose the right day to come to us" Rick announced.

Chase raised his eyebrows. "Really? Why?"

"They had some misfortune of their own today" Rick replied. "Three of their diggers were uh… melted"

"Melted?" Chase blinked. "How so?"

"Salt acid. Pressurized salt acid. Some kind of… ancient booby trap" Rick explained.

"Maybe this place really is cursed" Jonathan murmured. He flicked a small bit of sand into the fire, which faltered, a lot more than it should've with the amount of sand that hit it.

Everyone but Evy went pale and exchanged looks after it went back to normal.

Evy glanced at all of them. "For heaven's sake, all of you!"

Rick poked at the fire with a stick. "You don't believe in curses?"

"No I don't" Evy replied.

Tess coughed. "Liar!" she coughed again.

Evy playfully glared at her. "No, Mr. O'Connell. I believe if I can see it and I can touch it then it's real. That's what I believe."

"I believe in being prepared" Rick picked up his gun and cocked it.

Jonathan reached for the Warden's bag. "Let's see what our friend the Warden believed in" he reached inside the bag and fished around for a few moments before he let out a yell, scaring everyone.

"Ah! My God, what is it?!" Evy shrieked.

"A broken bottle" Jonathan replied calmly as if nothing had happened.

"Geez!" Tess let out a short breath and leaned against Chase, who was chuckling at Jonathan's action.

Jonathan pulled out the said item from the bag. "Glenlivet." He reported, and then grinned. "Twelve years old! Well, he may've been a stinky fellow but he had good taste" he took a swig from the bottle.

Evy giggled.

Rick looked around when he heard horses neighing in the background. He turned back to the group and looked at Tess.

"I heard it this time" Tess nodded.

Rick nodded. "Stay here. Henderson, with me, you others, stay here"

"Gotcha" Chase nodded and got to his feet and followed Rick.

Evy got up. "What's going on?" she followed them.

"Evy!" Tess and Jonathan yelled, running after her.

They had barely walked twenty feet until the neighing got louder, and a moment later, people dressed in black on horses came out of nowhere and started to attack the camp, as well as the people in it. Rick and Tess looked at each other. "Med-jai" Rick muttered.

"Looks like it" Tess nodded.

"Split up!" Rick yelled over the commotion that had begun, but found his order had already been followed since no one was around him anymore.

"MR. HENDERSON!"

Chase looked around, hearing his name, then looked at Tess, who was reloading her gun a few feet away. "I gotta go save Chamberlain's ass!"

"Who's he?!" Tess yelled.

"The guy you nearly attacked today. The wimp!" with that. Chase ran towards the American camp.

Tess watched him leave, making sure no one tried to attack him before she turned around to find a clear shot at one of the riders, then turned, seeing Jonathan running. She stared at him, wondering why he was running like that, until she saw he was being chased by one of the riders.

"Time to run, Teresa!" Jonathan grabbed her arm when he was right next to her and yanked her along with him.

After a few seconds of running, Tess glanced back to see the man was still chasing them. She looked back at Jonathan. "He hasn't found someone new?!"

"Apparently not!" Jonathan yelled.

Tess nodded. "Keep running. I'll get him off of you!" she quickly sidestepped and ducked, just avoiding getting hit by their pursuer's sword. She sighed in relief, seeing that he only glanced back at her before continuing to chase after Jonathan. Lead the guy. She raised her gun and tried to set up the exact shot she wanted.

"Faster! Faster, faster would be better, Tess!" Jonathan yelled.

Tess finally got the shot and pulled the trigger, sending the bullet into the space between Jonathan and the rider. She smiled, seeing that her plan had worked since the horse stopped, spooked by the sound. Something that she didn't count on but was relieved to find was Rick coming out of nowhere and tackling the rider off the horse. "Rick!" she ran to his side when the rider got up and drew his sword.

Rick instantly shot the sword out of the man's hands, then jumped when the other man pulled out another sword and sent Rick's gun flying out of his hands before doing the same with Tess'.

"What the-" they both began, and watched their guns go flying. They turned back just in time to see the man swing the sword at them again.

Tess dove to the side when Rick turned and rolled towards the fire to light a stick of dynamite that he had with him.

Tess hadn't seen what he had done, so when she saw the man in black freeze, she looked at her friend and saw what he was holding. "Rick…"

The man lowered his sword. "Enough, Yallah!" He ordered. After his men stopped, he continued. "We will shed no more blood, but you must leave this place… leave this place or die" he walked towards the horse two of his men had brought over and mounted it. "You have one day!" they rode off.

Tess sighed and ran one of her hands through her hair. "That was close"

"Yeah" Rick muttered before tossing the fuse from the dynamite away. He turned and frowned. "Oh no"

Tess looked to see what he was talking about, then frowned. "Ev?!" She ran over to her sister, who was lying on the ground. She sighed in relief when she came to as Rick helped her up.

"You alright?" Rick asked.

"Yes, I'm fine" Evy nodded.

Tess hugged her. "Never do that to me again, you understand? Jonathan would be too annoying to live alone with, and we have Rick and Chase here who I might as well just call brothers anyway who are just plain insane. Do you really want me to go insane myself just trying to deal with those three?"

Evy smiled. "No, Tess. I'm sorry." She hugged Tess back.

"Well, one of those non-blood brothers is here seeing if both of you are okay" Chase said as he came over to them.

"Both are" Rick nodded.

"I'm fine, really" Evy nodded.

Daniels scoffed. "Sorry to break up your little family moment, but we did just get attacked and that proves it! Seti's fortune's gotta be under that sand. For them to protect it like this, you know there's treasure down there"

Rick shook his head. "No. These men are desert people. They value water, not gold."

Burns scratched his nose. "Maybe just for tonight we could uh… combine forces, hmm?" he said, then looked at Chamberlain and Daniels. "Listen to Henderson this time and stay on their side for a bit?"

Chase smirked at all three of them, then pointed at himself. "Not so stupid now, huh?"


	8. Juicy

**A/N: Thank this update on Stephen Dunham (Henderson) showing up in the new Get Smart movie. I muttered 'It's Henderson' and the guy behind me heard me, then saw that I was right, so he goes "Holy crap, it is! Dude! He looks awful without long hair!" I was laughing hysterically for five minutes straight, so I got a bunch of odd looks until a funny part showed up.**

**(Points up at above part of A/N) I wrote that A/N a few weeks ago. Now it's just because I saw the trailer for the new Mummy movie coming out. I kept that in just so you guys could hear a semi-funny story about me making an idiot outta myself. I'm still excited that Dunham showed up in it, though. Anyways, enjoy.**

--

Tess snorted yet again at the fact that Chase was poking Jonathan with a stake from one of the tents, and her brother didn't even respond. He just kept sleeping.

"Okay, try a right hook,"

Tess looked behind her. "You should know it's not good to teach a drunk girl to fistfight, Ricky,"

Rick smirked. "Why's that?"

"Remember that psycho blonde that you tried it with a few years back? She broke your nose," Tess pointed out.

"Yeah, some help you were, just sitting there laughing, just like you are now" Rick shot back, then turned back to Evy and continued the lesson.

"You know you love me," Tess replied, then snorted when Evy tried out the punch.

"I mean it! Ooh!" Evy said as she punched, slipping in the process.

"Oh!" Rick caught her and lowered her to the ground to lessen the blow. "Okay, time for another drink,"

"Such a ladies man," Tess laughed.

"Oh, go bother that Egypt guy," Rick waved his hand.

"Sorry, the idiot I hate who's with Chase and the others, or the one who tried to kill us?" Tess asked.

"Either works," Rick replied.

Evy paid no heed to their conversation, still in her own little worlsd, giggling away.. "Unlike my brother or sister, sir, I know when to say no,"

"HEY!" Tess objected, smacking Chase when he chuckled. She watched Evy take another swig of the drink. "Go choke on that!" she growled playfully.

Rick chuckled. "Yeah, and unlike Crazy Psychic Lady and you're brother, miss, you, I just don't get…" he looked at Tess. "Okay, maybe I don't get her after all, but that's besides the point,"

Tess made a face at him.

Evy giggled at the face, then turned back to Rick. "Ah, I know. You're wondering what's a place like me doing… in a girl like this?" Evy waved her arms.

Tess grinned. "She really is drunk. I'M SO PROUD!"

Again, she was ignored by both parties on the other side of the fire. "You see, Egypt is in my blood. You see, my father was a very, very famous explorer, and he loved Egypt so much, he married my mother, who was an Egyptian, and quite an adventurer herself,"

"And then my father just packed his bags one day, dragged me off to the states, and we all lived happily ever after," Tess concluded.

Chase snorted. "Way to make a good story depressin', Tessie,"

Rick nodded in agreement. "Well, I get your father, and I get your mother, your sister, like I said, I'm still not sure about, I get him," she pointed at Jonathan. "But… what're you doing here?"

"The place or the girl?" Tess asked, which earned Rick throwing the locket at her.

Evy finally let the comment register. "Look, I… I… I may not be an explorer…" she got up. "…Or an adventurer, or a… a treasure seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O'Connell, but I am proud, of what I am!"

"Yeaaaaaahhh, she's REALLY gone. More gone that I usually get," Chase nodded, trying not to laugh as Evy continued.

"But I …am proud… of what I am!"

"And what is that?" Rick asked.

"I… am a librarian!" Evy fell to her knees. "And I… am going to kiss you, Mr. O'Connell,"

Tess waved her arms, not hearing the last part correctly quite yet. "And I am going to- WHAT?!" her head snapped in Rick and Evy's direction. "Rick, you do it, you're gonna die!"

Rick ignored her, only caring that he was about to get some action. "Call me Rick,"

Evy grinned. "Ahh… Rick," she leaned forward.

Tess went pale and buried her face in Chase's shoulder yet again. "Kill me now, please,"

There was a sudden thud, then Tess' head was no longer supported because Chase had fallen backwards from laughing so hard, so Tess fell forwards, getting a mouthful of sand. "What was that about?!" she looked back at Rick and Evy since Chase had only managed to point at them, seeing Evy had passed out in Rick's lap, and Rick was staring into space. "Well doesn't that just stink for you?" she grinned.

--

The next morning, the small group had started to go exploring in a tomb and they had found a sarcophagus. They were preparing to open it since Evy had talked them into it.

"Alright guys, get ready," Rick muttered, going to the right of it as Chase and Jonathan went to the left.

Rick frowned. "What, I don't get help? Tess, get over here,"

Tess sighed and went next to Rick, trying to figure out a way of opening it.

"Oooh, I've dreamt about this since I was a little girl!" Evy practically squealed.

"You dream about dead guys?" Rick asked.

"That just blows your chances, doesn't it?" Tess whispered to him. Rick stepped on her foot to shut her up, but was happy to find Evy hadn't heard her.

Evy pointed at the sarcophagus. "Look, the sacred spells have been chiseled off!" Evy pointed out. "This man must've been condemned not only in this life but the next.

"Okay, I'm done!" Chase stepped away from the sarcophagus.

Rick snorted at Chase. "Tough break… for this guy, I mean," he knocked on the sarcophagus.

"Yeah, I'm all tears," Jonathan agreed, turning a disc on the sarcophagus' side. "Let's see who's inside, shall we?" Rick and Jonathan pulled at the front of it and it opened, but a body flew forward from it, causing each person in the room to let out a scream. They all wouldn't have been surprised if the other Americans had heard them.

When the body stopped moving, everyone but Evy couldn't help but laugh at how they had reacted after they got a good look at the corpse.

"Oh God, I HATE it when these things do that!" Evy growled.

"Is he supposed to look like that?" Rick asked.

"No, I've never seen a mummy look like this before…he's still… still…"

"Juicy…" Rich, Jonathan and Chase all said simulatenously with disgust in their voices.

"Yes," Evy agreed. "He must be more than three thousand years old,"

"And still looks like that? Far fetched, don't you think?" Tess asked. She thought of poking the corpse to emphasize her point, but decided against it.

"You're right. It is far fetched. It's as if he's still… decomposing," she studied the corpse more just as Rick went over to the lid of the sarcophagus that had fallen to the floor, facedown.

"What do you make of this?" Rick asked, pointing out a few gashes in the stone.

"My god, these were made with… fingernails," she traced her own fingernails along the gashes.

Tess glanced at her own nails. "Then they must've been pretty strong to do that,"

"Exactly… but the scratches… they indicate that this man was buried alive," Evy told them. She looked at the lid again. "And he left a message…" she started reading it. "Death… is only the beginning,"

"Okay, nice meeting you Carnhans', Rick, but if you excuse me I really gotta go now," Chase made a move to get up since he had crouched to get a better look at the scratches. He groaned when Tess pulled him back down. "Tessie, this is more of your crazy family's thing. I-"

"I second that notion to get outta here. It's a little to creepy for my taste, too. Maybe it's just a British thing… part time British thing," he added, looking at Tess.

"No. You're right. It may be best if we get out of here since we disturbed him. I've heard stories…" Evy began.

"And the people who don't wanna die here don't wanna hear 'em. Time to go," Rick pulled Evy to her feet. "Now, where's the exit?"

--

It had been a couple of more hours and the group had gotten out of the tomb. They were now in smaller groups around the campsite. Rick, Chase and Jonathan were sharing various life experiences while Evy and Tess were walking around together, feeling they needed to get fresh air.

"I was wrong after all, your friend Henderson doesn't seem that bad after all… or not as bad as his friends," Evy told Tess as they began to turn a corner.

"Ha ha, told you," Tess smiled at her sister. They both turned to look at Chamberlain when they heard him grunting a few feet away. They looked at each other, seeing a large book in his hands. He was busy trying to get it open.

Evy was the only one to notice the indentation in the front looked like the puzzle box that turned out being a key. "Erm… I believe you need a key to open that book," she hurried off, leaving Tess alone briefly. Tess watched Evy go before looking back at Chamberlain, who was staring at her. "What're you looking at?!" she headed in the direction Evy had gone. She reached the campfire and took a seat between her brother and Chase, who were now in the middle of a card game. After figuring out it was a modified version of poker, she glanced at Jonathan's hand, then leaned towards Chase.

Chase leaned away from her and pulled his cards further from her. "Don't try it, sister,"

"I was gonna help _you_," Tess replied.

"Yeah right," Chase chuckled. He looked up when he saw a shadow cross his path and murmured a greeting to Daniels and Burns as they approached.

"Say O'Connell, what do you think these shiny things'll fetch us back home?" Daniels asked, holding up one of the two canopic jars he held in his hands.

"We heard you found yourselves a nice gooey mummy," Burns smirked. He looked at Chase. "Shoulda stayed with us, Henderson,"

Chase sighed and put down his cards so he could put his hands up. He shook one hand. "Frienship…" he shook the other. "Money…" he waved the first. "Still more of a friendship kinda guy,"

Daniels snorted. "Your loss. All you'll get is firewood if you sell that mummy,"

"Well, then we'll have an advantage over you guys when this runs out, because we're not sharing. Remember, join forces for one night?" Rick replied shortly, nodding at the wood beside him, then the wood that was currently burning in front of him. He glanced at Beni when the short man sat down at his left.

Evy came over to them. "Look what I found!"

Rick now glared at Beni. "You're in her seat,"

Beni just laughed as if it was a joke.

"Now!" Rick snapped.

"Yup," Beni got up so Evy could sit.

However, she didn't at first. She was more focused on showing off what she found. "Look. Scarab skeletons, flesh eaters," she finally sat down. "I found them inside our friend's coffin. They can stay alive for years feasting on the flesh of a corpse. Unfortunately for our friend, he was still alive when they started eating him,"

"So somebody threw these in with our guy, and then they slowly ate him alive?" Rich asked.

"Very slowly," Evy confirmed.

"He certainly wasn't a popular fellow when they planted him, was he?" Jonathan asked.

"Well, he probably got a little to frisky with the pharaoh's daughter," Rick suggested.

Evy snorted. "Well, according to my readings, our friend suffered the Hom-Dai, the worst of all Ancient Egyptian curses, one reserved only for the most evil of blasphemers. In all my research, I've never heard of this curse having actually been preformed,"

"Then it probably hasn't… except for 'our guy', " Tess murmured.

"Yes, well they never used it because they feared it so. It's written that if a victim of the Hom-Dai should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt,"

Tess laughed when everyone looked spooked. "Oh come on, mummies are dead for good. There's no chance that these things would ever 'arise'… right?" she looked at Evy, then at Rick. "Right?" she repeated.

Rick shrugged. "After what you and I saw? Who knows?"

There was another drawn out awkward silence before the Americans went in their own direction again, and Rick, Evy, Jonathan, Chase and Tess stayed by the fire. Evy was out and about while Jonathan, Chase and Tess were sleeping. Rick followed their lead, only pretending to sleep.

Tess had always been a light sleeper, so when Rick said 'that's called stealing, you know' somewhat loudly, she woke up and flipped over. "'S gowynon?" she murmured, still not fully awake. When her vision got a bit more clear she noticed that Evy had the large book Chamberlain had. "What're you doing?" she muttered, rolling onto her stomach and dragging herself over to her sister when Rick got up and walked over to her.

"I thought the book of Amun-Ra was made out of gold," Rick pointed out.

"It is. This isn't the book of Amun-Ra. This is something else. I think this may be the Book of the Dead," she opened the puzzle box.

"The book of the dead?" Rick repeated. "Are you sure you wanna be playing around with this thing?"

"It's just a book. No harm ever came from reading a book," Evy replied.

Tess sighed. Clearly Evy didn't remember reading Tom Sawyer as kids. Evy was inspired by Tom to climb a tree once. She ended up falling out of it and breaking her arm. She jumped when the wind howled right after Evy opened the book. "Uh…"

"That happens a lot around here," Rick looked around. "So what's it say?" he leaned towards Evy.

Evy started reading. "Amun Ra, Amun Dei… it speaks of the night and of the day," she continued to read in Egyptian.

They all looked up, alarmed when they heard Chamberlain screaming. "No! You must not read from the book!" the Egyptologist yelled, getting to his feet. The yelling as well as the wind howling again woke up everyone who was still sleeping. They all got up when they saw something black starting to cover the navy blue night sky.

Tess blinked, seeing that the black mass soon turned into two sections coming right for them, and it suddenly sounded like bugs were coming for them, and it wasn't quite a pleasant sound. "Evy, what did you do _now_?!" she yelled before starting to run off with everyone else as Rick gave the order. This was far from a highlight of the trip.


	9. I Can't See You, You Can't See Me

Thankfully the next few moments went fast. Both groups had run into the tomb they were in earlier, going their separate ways about halfway through. Rick, Jonathan, Evy and Tess had just turned one corner when they heard similar buzzing to the locusts that had been chasing them.

"Oh, don't tell me they followed us in," Tess groaned.

"Well, that depends, they didn't quite follow us, or they burrowed to find us," Rick replied, staring at a spot on the ground.

Tess was about to ask what he meant, but then found out when she noticed the ground in front of them was rising fast, then burst and a whole bunch of black beetles came rushing out of it.

"SCARABS!" Evy yelled, leading the charge in the opposite direction and into a large room that a bridge spanned across with a circular rock formation to its right and a rock outcropping on the other side.

Rick, Jonathan and Tess went onto the formation while Evy jumped onto the outcrop.

Tess watched the scarabs pass for a few seconds, wondering when they would stop coming, until she heard a familiar scream that she had learned to make fun of. "Evy?!" she looked up at where her sister had been moments before, only to see the spot empty and the wall behind it gone, but the wall suddenly came back into place. "EVY?!" she repeated, looking back at the scarabs desperately.

Jonathan finally noticed that her panic was no longer about the scarabs and also looked at where Evy had been. "…Evy?"

Rick also looked around. "Evelyn?"

Tess pointed weakly at the wall. "She went…" she couldn't even finish the sentence.

Rick raised an eyebrow, having some idea of what she meant. He jumped onto the bridge, then onto the outcropping, poking around. "Little help over here?" Rick nodded.

Tess nodded and joined him on the outcrop, but Jonathan stayed on the bridge.

Both Rick and Tess looked around for any sign of what could've triggered the movement, but failed.

"Damn it, trapdoor," Rick sighed, giving one of the stones a tap with his gun. "There's gotta be a switch or something around here someplace," he started patting around.

Tess joined in again, but like last time, it only lasted a moment because she heard another familiar yell, but this time it was from a man. "Chase?!" she turned towards the entrance, seeing Chase, Daniels and two other diggers come bolting through it.

"Run you sons of bitches! Run!" Chase yelled, speeding up down the bridge.

It didn't take long for the other three to see that the scarabs were back and now chasing the Americans. After Rick simply said, "Go,", the three of them joined the others and ran down another corridor. Tess noticed Rick stop in his tracks and run down an adjacent corridor, yelling something. "Rick, what're you…?!" she ran after him, followed by the others.

Tess just managed to see that Rick had found Evy before seeing a giant walking corpse that looked just about the same size and the one they had found earlier. She skidded to a halt.

"Evy?!" Jonathan yelled, not notcing that Tess had stopped until he rammed into her. He recovered and went to ask why she had stopped, then also saw the corpse and yelped.

The corpse looked at them before looking back at Evy and Rick. It roared at them, and Rick, being himself, roared right back and shot him before running off, beckoning the others to follow. "Move!"

Jonathan was the first to follow. "Yeah, right! Did you see that?!"

Tess shoved him forward. "Jonathan, shut up and run!"

"It was walking! It was walking!" Jonathan breathed.

"WE KNOW!" Everyone behind him yelled.

The group had just managed to run out of the tomb before they were met by the sound of rifles cocking, then the group who had told them to leave came into view.

"Fantastic," Tess murmured.

The leader who Rick and Tess had fought stepped forward, lowering his mouth covering as he did so. "I told you to leave or die. You refused. Now you may have killed us all, for you have unleashed a creature we have feared for more than three thousand years,"

"Relax, I got 'em," Rick told him.

"No mortal weapon can kill this creature. He is not of this world," the man replied with a grimace, then stepped aside so two men could bring forth someone who everyone recognized as Burns.

Daniels was the first to receive him. He set Burns down, then glared at the others. "You bastards,"

"What did you do to him?" Chase demanded.

"We saved him," the man replied. "Saved him before the creature could finish its work,"

"Which is?" Tess raised an eyebrow.

"Unspeakable," the man replied, then looked back at everyone else. "Leave, all of you, quickly, before he finishes you all," he looked at his men. "Yallah. Nimishi,"

His men started walking into the tomb, and he followed, giving the group a few final words. "We must now go on the hunt and try to find a way to kill him,"

"I _already told you_, I got him," Rick growled.

The man turned to Rick. "Know this. This creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat, he will never sleep, he will never stop," with that, he left, leaving the group alone.

Jonathan was the first to speak. "… So, anyone else scared out of their minds and want to leave now like he said, or are we just gonna stand here and wait for those guys to kill us?"

With that, the groups went their separate ways to get their things, but only briefly, because within minutes they were leaving the area.

--

The next morning, they were getting ready to leave. Chase and the rest of his original team had volunteered to see about the boat home, and the others were just finishing packing. Tess had finished earliest out of all of them, so she was sitting on the bed of the room that she and Evy shared, watching Rick pace back and forth, getting Evy's things while arguing with her, being that Evy was the only one who wanted to stay.

"I thought you said you didn't believe in that fairytales and hokum stuff!" Rick pointed out, glaring at the white cat who had been slinking around the room.

Evy scooped the at up and practically shoved it into Tess' arms, nearly knocking her sister over. Even the cat seemed to need recovery briefly.

Tess huffed and got a better hold on the cat, scratching it behind the ears as the argument continued.

"Having an encounter with a three thousand year old, walking, talking corpse does tend to convert one," Evy replied, taking the clothes that Rick had just put down and putting them back in the closet.

"Forget it. We're out the door, down the hall and we're gone!" Rick argued.

"Oh no we are not!" Evy snapped.

"Oh yes, we are!" Rick shot back. "Isn't that right, Tess?!" he looked at the said woman.

Tess stared at him blankly for a couple of seconds. _Let's see, death by sister, or death by friend? How about neither?_ before holding up the cat in front of her face so it blocked him from looking at her in the eye. "I'm not here. I can't see you, you can't see me," she put down the cat when he looked away.

"Thanks for the help," Rick muttered, then looked back at Evy as she continued to say that they were going to stay. He could've laughed when Evy said that they were going to stop him. " 'We'? What 'we'? 'We' didn't read that book, I told you not to play around with that thing, didn't I tell her not to play around with that thing?!" he looked at Tess.

Tess picked up the cat again. "Again, I can't see you, you can't see me,"

"Exactly, leave her out of this! That's right, me, me, me, me, I, I, I woke him up, and I intend to stop him!"

Rick dropped a set of books in the suitcase. "Yeah, how? You heard the man, no mortal weapons can kill this guy!"

"He has a point, Eve," Tess pointed out.

"Oh well, then we're just going to have to find some _im_mortal ones," Evy replied, taking another set of books out of his hands and putting them back.

"There goes that 'we' again," Rick sighed.

"Would you listen to me?! We have to do something!" Evy told him, slamming the suitcase shut, getting Rick's fingers caught as the sides slammed shut.

Tess winced, actually expecting a bigger yell of pain than the one that came from Rick.

"Once this creature has been reborn, his curse is going to spread until the whole of the Earth is destroyed!" Evy said.

"Yeah? Is that my problem?" Rick demanded.

"It is everyone's problem," Evy informed him.

"Evelyn, I appreciate you saving my life and all, but when I signed on, I agreed to take you out there and bring you back, and I have done that. End of job, end of story, contract terminated!"

"That's all I am to you, a contract?" Evy asked.

Tess slapped her forehead. "There she goes again," she muttered.

"You can either tag along with me or stay here, and try to save the world!" Rick continued. What's it gonna be?"

"I'm staying," Evy replied defiantly.

"Oh God," Tess groaned, hanging her head. If she's staying, she's going to make me stay. I'm a goner.

Clearly, Rick hadn't expected the answer. "…Fine!" he looked at Tess. "Come on, at least you're coming with me. I got into a ton of shit with you before, we might as well start it up again," he took her arm and started dragging her towards the door.

"Fine!" Evy nodded, chasing after them as they nearly reached the door.

"Fine," Rick nodded, swinging the door open, ushering Tess outside.

"Fine!" Evy called again.

"Fine," Rick looked back at her before shutting the door.

They both walked downstairs.

Feeling uncomfortable, Tess broke the silence. "So… where to?"

"The bar," Rick growled.

"What, do drink away your girl troubles?" Tess demanded.

"One can only hope," Rick replied, then looked back towards the bar, bumping into someone as he did so. He and Tess noticed it was a friend they had made years before. "Oh, Hey Winston,"

Winston turned to them after a moment, then looked at Tess. "Oh, you know, O'Connell," he looked at Tess. "Theodore? Ted, is that you? You look a lot different with the long hair, I'll have you know. You better be careful, some would think you were a ponce,"

Rick opened his mouth to reply, then paused and looked at Tess. "We told him about you, right?"

"Yeah, but this is Winston we're talking about, I mean, look at him. Last time we saw him he was drunk, and he's even more drunk now," she muttered, then turned back to Winston and cleared her throat so she could manage to make her voice go deep. "Right, I'll keep that in mind. Nice seeing you again," she dragged Rick towards the bar and groaned when she realized Winston was following them.

"You know, Ted, O'Connell, ever since the great war, there hasn't been a-"

Rick and Tess turned around, seeing Winston had stepped into the fountain. They continued walking until they spotted Jonathan. Tess went behind her brother and covered his eyes with her hands, just as Rick tweaked his ear. Tess let go and Jonathan turned, grunting a bit to acknowledge them.

The old man recovered quickly. " – single challenge worthy of a man like me,"

"Yeah? Well, we've all got our little problems today, don't we?" Rick asked.

Tess kicked him under the table, then accepted the drink Jonathan offered her as Winston continued talking about how he wished he had died with his comrades in the sky. She laughed when Jonathan went to take a sip of his drink, but Winston took it right out of his hands, muttering "Cheers" with Rick before they downed theirs. "He does that," she whispered to him.

Jonathan rolled his eyes, more so when Winston slapped him and Rick on the back as a farewell.

Tess smiled, watching him, then waved as she spotted Chase walking over, leaving the boys to have a little talk about Evy on their own.

Chase raised his head. "Hey Tes…" he spotted Winston and recognized him, because the last time he had seen Tess, she told him if he ever saw her and him in the same vicinity, he would have to call her 'Ted' or something. "dy… Hi Teddy," he restated quickly.

Tess shook her head. "It was alright, he was drunk," she assured him when he was directly behind her.

"You can never be too careful," he replied, then tapped her upper arm with his knuckles.

Tess rolled her eyes. That had always been his way of asking her for a drink. She smirked at him, not giving in. "What's up?"

"We're all packed up but the boat don't leave 'til tomorrow mornin'," he replied, tapping her arm again.

"Tail set firmly between your legs, I see," Jonathan pointed out.

"I don't know about you, but I don't wanna die. We could die from now until then," Chase replied.

"Actually, you're lucky. I talked to Evy about it. It's your friends who got those canopic jars that we should worry about. The corpse is after them, not us,"

"Alright, need I remind you I share a room with one of them," he nodded to his left at Daniels as the said man walked up. "Speak of the devil," he muttered in her ear.

Tess raised her eyebrows and took a drink, nearly chucking it at his head when he tapped her shoulder yet again. "Take the damn drink!"

"Don't mind if I do," Chase smirked, taking the bottle and pouring himself a drink.

Rick looked at the new arrival. "How's your friend?"

"He had his eyes and his tongue ripped out, how would you be?" Daniels replied sharply, then walked away.

Chase watched him, then turned back to the table. "Sorry 'bout him. He's short tempered to begin with,"

"Can you blame him?" Tess asked.

Chase nodded slowly. "You're right," there was a brief silence, then he shook his head. "You know, what the Hell are we doing moping around? We're outta here tomorrow and on our way back home, away from this mess. We should be happy,"

Rick nodded. "You got it,"

"Can't wait," Jonathan and Tess agreed.

Chase raised his glass. "Good luck boys and girl who's just as good as the boys,"

The three others clinked their glasses with him and took a drink, spitting it out a moment later, just as a bunch of other patrons did, because the drinks tasted far from what they were supposed to taste like.

Once Chase "Sweet Jesus, that tasted just like…"

Rick spotted one of the fountains' water turning red and dropped his glass. "Blood…"

"And the rivers and waters of Egypt ran red, and were as blood…" Jonathan recited one of the plagues.

Realization suddenly came to Rick. "He's here…" he announced, then looked at the others. "Jon, Tess, Henderson. Split up. We have to find Evy _NOW_!"

**A/N: Yay, that was my favorite chapter to write from the old version of this fic and I liked it even more this time around. I hope you guys did too. Review!!**


	10. A Little Faith

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait, people. I'm getting into my old updating habits, haha. Anyways, I think I got around to replying to everyone's reviews, so cheers for those, and I hope you enjoy this chap. One little request: If you're gonna review, please tell me what your fave part/line of the chap was, will ya? K... Don't own Mummy, what you don't recognize is mine... and I hope you're having a great Valentine's Day.**

The group had been looking around for Evy for a few minutes and still had no success. Tess had just realized that she might've been in the lounge when someone grabbed her shoulder, causing her to jump and turn around, swinging out her arm. She would've hit the person if they hadn't jumped back quickly.

"Easy, Tessie!"

Tess relaxed. "Chase. Sorry,"

Chase nodded. "Thought you were your sister,"

Tess sighed. "Straight hair that's never pulled back, three inches taller than her, and I still get confused with her,"

"You look alike from the side," Chase offered in his defense. "Come on. She can't be far. I found you 'cause I coulda sworn she came this way," He turned towards the courtyard in the middle of the area they were in.

Tess went to follow him, but then saw something bright out of the corner of her eye. She got a better look at it, then went wide-eyed, seeing that the bright objects was quite literally a ball of fire. "Look out!" she yanked him backwards, right before the small fireball hit the spot he would've been in a moment later.

"SHIT!" Chase and Tess quickly ran for cover when even more of the fireballs started coming down.

"What the Hell is this?!" he yelled over the series of now-panicked yells around them.

"It's not good, I can tell you that much!" Tess replied.

"Is it him?" Chase replied.

"Only one way to find out,"

They backtracked, now focused completely on finding everyone and not just Evy. They had just made it into a hallway upstairs where they met up with Jonathan and Daniels.

"What the bloody Hell's going on, Tess?!" Jonathan demanded.

"Why do I always have the answers?! I don't know! Evy's the Egyptologist, I spent most of my life in the States with him and Rick!" she pointed at Chase.

"Well you know more about it than me!" Jonathan pointed out.

Tess rolled her eyes. "Shut up, Jon. Maybe they're back in our room," she suggested.

No one was in any mood to disagree. They were about halfway towards their room when they heard gunshots.

"Trouble," Tess announced before they all took off in a run towards the room, getting inside just in time to see Rick shooting at the mummy they had seen before, but it was more fleshy than the last time. When they finally came back to Earth from being totally stunned, they all drew their own guns, trying to help Rick, but the bullets that hit the mummy did no damage at all. It just slowed them down. The group barely had time to brace themselves when the mummy shoved Rick backwards, sending the American flying backwards into them. After a short time, they managed to sort out whose limb was whose and slowly got to their feet, then all jumped when they heard the piano start playing. They looked back at the mummy when he let out what they figured was a shriek of fear. All they could do was stare when it turned into sand and disappeared out the window, an image of it's head and hands still in the sand.

Rick was the first to speak. "…We are in VERY serious trouble…"

--

Within a couple of hours, the entire group was at the Cairo Museum. They wanted answers, and they wanted them now. They were in the middle of reviewing what they had remembered as well as offering ideas as to why Burns had been reduced to flesh and bone… what little flesh there was left, that was. They had managed to develop a basic idea when they walked into one of the exhibits and were shocked yet again to see the man who had led the attack on them a few nights before. It didn't take any of them long to draw their weapons and point them directly at him as Evy yelled "You?!"

"Ladies… gentleman," the curator greeted dryly.

"What is HE doing here?" Evy demanded.

"Do you really want to know or would you prefer to just… shoot us?" the curator asked.

If it had been any other situation, Tess would've laughed when she heard Daniels growl, as if disappointed that he couldn't shoot anything.

"After what I just saw… I'm willing to go on a little faith here,"

The curator just raised his head slowly. "Hm,"

A few minutes passed, and the group had gotten comfortable on various pieces of one of the exhibits, such as boxes and chairs as the curator and the attack leader, Ardeth, explained everything.

"We are part of an ancient secret society. For over three thousand years, we have guarded the City of the Dead. We are sworn at manhood to do any and all in our power to stop the High Priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world,"

"Now, because of you, we have failed," Ardeth cut in.

"You think we brought him back on purpose?" Tess shot back. "Because we didn't. It was a total accident, and we didn't know,"

"You read from the book, did you not?" The curator demanded.

"Yes, but how were we supposed to know…?" Evy trailed off. "No matter, you think this justifies the killing of innocent people?"

Rick nodded. "You guys are the guys who tried to take us down at Hamunaptra three years back, weren't you?" he asked rhetorically, knowing the answer already. He looked at Tess, then back at Ardeth. "We lost a lot of good people back there. Good friends,"

"And you suppose we did not?" Ardeth demanded. "As for the woman's question, to stop this creature, yes!" the last word was joined in by the curator.

Tess scoffed. "First of all, "The woman's" name is Evelyn. Second, I think I speak for everyone when I say I don't think that you're telling us everything,"

"Yeah. Take this. Why doesn't he like cats?" Rick asked.

"Cats are guardians of the underworld. He will fear them until he is fully regenerated, then he will fear nothing,"

" 'Until he's fully regenerated'?" Tess asked. "We did see him with more skin after Burns…" she shuddered briefly, realizing that she answered her own question. "But how…?"

"By killin' everyone who opened that chest and suckin' em dry, that's how!" Daniels practically yelled at her.

"Hey, easy! We're all learning this same as you!" Chase snapped.

"Shut up, Henderson!" Daniels snapped.

"Make me!" Chase replied.

Tess glanced at the curator and Ardeth, noticing them exchange glances before rolling their eyes. She looked back at Jonathan when she heard an odd 'pluck', seeing that he had been toying with a bow and arrow.

"Jonathan, stop playing with that!" Evy scolded him. "When I saw him alive at Hamunaptra, he called me… Anck-su-namun," she paused when the curator and Ardeth looked at each other, debating whether or not to continue, but curiosity got the better of her. "And then in Mr. Burns' quarters, he tried to kiss me,"

"It's because of his love for Anck-su-namun that he was cursed," the curator looked at Ardeth. "Apparently after three thousand years…"

"He is still in love with her," Ardeth nodded.

"Yes, well, that's very romantic, but what does that have to do with me?"

"Perhaps he will once again try to raise her from the dead,"

"Apparently he's already chosen his human sacrifice," the curator agreed, and when they looked at Evy, Tess burst out laughing.

"You've got to be joking! Evy? A sacrifice? Don't they take strong people? Look, Evy, no offense, but you're clearly not the strongest here,"

"It requires a woman, Miss. Carnhan. Perhaps it would be good for you to learn from your sister," the curator replied.

Ardeth nodded. "It could have easily been you he chose,"

"Wonderful," Tess said sarcastically.

"But this does give us the time we need…" the curator trailed off.

"Time? Time for what?" Tess asked.

"To kill the creature. We keep her safe, we… what's the expression? Buy time?" the curator paused, then nodded, realizing he was correct.

"We will need all the help we can get. His powers are growing," Ardeth added, looking up.

Everyone followed his gaze, seeing that, of all things, a solar eclipse was happening, not really paying attention as Jonathan recited the plague that matched the happening.

Rick sighed. "Well, this isn't gonna end well,"

----

" 'Oh, don't worry, Ev! It will be fine! I can clean up the library when you work up a plan,' 'No problem'. What was I thinking?!" Tess demanded, righting yet another bookshelf, as per the agreement. While she, Chase and Daniels were getting the room of the library Evy had nearly destroyed earlier fixed up as much as possible, the others would work up a plan of what to do. Being that Chase and Daniels had disappeared about two minutes into the cleanup, it was obviously proving to be far from what she expected. She turned to get another one of the smaller shelves upright, but when she pushed it up, it was easier than the last couple. "… I don't even know my strength anymore," she said to herself.

"Or what you can do with help,"

Tess looked up and frowned slightly, seeing Ardeth holding the other side of the shelf. It had been easier because he had helped push it up. "Do you always sneak up on people like that?"

"Do you always act so ungrateful to people who try to help you?"

"Well, it changes since said person tried to kill me twice," Tess shot back.

"What do you mean? It was only a few night ago,"

"You think Rick looked at me when he said 'we' lost good men out there three years ago?! No! I was the person with him, and you were one of those people on that cliff, weren't you?"

"We were making sure you departed from the cursed city!" Ardeth argued.

"And we had left, yet you still followed us," Tess pointed out. "After the first mile or so, don't you think we weren't gonna turn back?"

"It was a precaution… and now you are back again, does that not say something?"

"It wasn't our idea. It was my sister's because she found that key, brought it to your friend, who then told us about Hamunaptra so we tracked Rick down, but either way, your buddy explained everything, so blame him, not us!"

"Fair enough, but I came here because I thought you might require assistance. I now see how wrong I was. Forgive me for offering a kindness," Ardeth left.

Tess watched him go, then let out a sharp exhale. She didn't know what to blame more. The very existence of man, or the entire situation. All she knew was that with everything going on, it was going to get pretty interesting as well as ugly until they solved the problem.


	11. You're Gonna Get Yours

**A/N: (Insert note from last chapter here) No, I didn't forget to delete this. I just have the same things to say.**

After the "tiff" with Ardeth as Rick had called it, Tess had settled for sticking with her original group in the largest hotel room they had gotten. They were working out a plan yet again, trying to work out who was involved with bringing Imhotep back.

"And Burns of course… and that Egyptologist fella." Daniels counted down.

"And our buddy Beni?" Rick inquired.

Daniels shook his head. "Scrammed outta there. He was the smart one, next to Henderson o' course." He froze. "Only two of us left, countin' me." he looked up at Chase beside him and grabbed the blonde by the collar. "You ain't gonna let me die, are ya?"

Chase licked his lips and frowned. "Sounds like you ain't got much choice…"

Daniels mumbled something then let him go before looking down.

"Well if that's the case, we have to find the Egyptologist and bring him back to the safety of the fort before the creature can get to him." Evy insisted.

"Ev, how do you suppose we do that? He could be anywhere in this city!"

Rick nodded. "Right. Ladies, stay here. You three, come with me." He motioned at the men.

All five started objecting, almost going in full circle. The sisters were complaining about staying while the men were objecting to going.

"Not me!"

"No!"

"Hold on, there!"

"I followed you into battle and you expect me to stay here and not help you?!"

"Just a minute, you can't leave me behind like some old carpetbag, I mean, who put you in charge, O'Connell, I-"

The other four shut their mouths when Rick hoisted Evy up onto his shoulder.

Evy continued her tirade. "What do you think you're doing?!"

Rick kicked open the door to the bedroom, bringing her inside.

"Jonathan! Teresa! O'Connell!"

"You just lost my help when you called me Teresa." Tess mumbled.

"Yeah, sorry, he's a bit… tall." Jonathan mumbled.

"He knows what he's doing!" Tess offered in between Evy's objections, right before Rick slammed the doors shut and pulled Daniels over. "This door doesn't open. She doesn't come out, and no one goes in, right?"

"Right," Daniels nodded.

Rick looked at Chase. "Right?"

"Right" Chase shrugged.

"Good." Rick let go of Daniels and headed for the door. "Let's go, Jonathan."

"Oh, I thought I could just stay at the fort, you know, keep an eye on things. My sisters

"Now!" Rick shouted, since he was already out the door.

"Yeah right, we're gonna go rescue the Egyptologist." He ran off.

Tess scoffed. "O'Connell!" she ran to the door. "You're still leaving me here?!"

Rick turned back and pointed at her. "You're the one I know has enough patience and strength to keep her in there. That's why you're there. If I knew your friend and his friend better, you'd probably be with us!"

"Fine." Tess went back inside, slamming the door shut as she did so. "Well, this'll be good."

After a few minutes of pacing, Tess finally had it with waiting. "They've been gone too long."

"Tessie, it's just been around ten minutes. They're probably fine. They're just lookin' for that guy ya don't like."

"I don't know." Tess looked out the window, seeing something close to a sanstorm coming their way, but it was coming too fast. "That's not good." She frowned as it got smaller. Remembering the last sandstorm, she frowned. "Oh, no." she barely had time to duck before the steady wall of sand suddenly stopped, then a section blasted itself right into the window. She turned, just in time to see Imhotep go back into his almost-human form. "Fantastic." She mumbled, then smiled weakly when he looked at her. She figured would've been a glare if he had more visible features. "Nice, homicidal undead mummy…" She didn't have much time to back up either, because in another moment, Imhotep had simply raised his hand and the next thing Tess and Chase knew, they had crashed right through the window. If an awning from one of the vendors below hadn't slightly caught their fall, they both knew they wouldv'e been unconscious with head wounds or worse instead of in severe pain.

"Ah…" Chase slowly sat up, grinding his teeth every so often, trying to fight the objections his body was giving him. "You alright?" he mumbled, seeing Tess closeby, still lying down.

"I'll letcha know once I can feel my back again." She replied, but then shot upright, hearing a masculine scream of plain that was joined by hers at the movement. "That's Daniels gone…" she hissed.

Chase frowned. "You don't think… if he got the Egyptologist already…"

"Then Evy's… up there…. Alone… with him and… everyone's… taken… care of." Tess replied weakly. "Oh, this is not gonna be a walk in the park." She braced herself, then rolled over to him. "Let's try and help each other up, here. I know it's not gonna work out too well but we gotta help her."

"Right."

With quite a bit of difficulty, the two managed to get more or less to their feet and did their best heading for the room. The stairs were far from easy to conquer. Both of them were literally using the handrail to drag themselves up.

"Hate to say it, but you're sister's in deep shit right about now if she's still alone."

"Hey! Get your ugly face offa her!"

They both heard Rick's voice down the hall, and it relieved them somewhat, but they were worried again when they heard a roar and a rush of sand.

"Maybe not," Henderson panted. "With any luck he just left."

They slowly made their way back, finding Rick was already dragging Evy away. "Where the Hell were you two?! I told you to stay in there with-" he finally registered their condition. "What happened to you?"

"You see the busted window?" Tess mumbled, holding her side.

"…Yeah. What was up with-"

"That Imho-what's-it sent us flyin' out." Chase replied.

Rick studied them. "Look. We gotta get outta here… you wanna stay here and get checked out?" The glares he received gave him the answer. "…O… kay… just… try to stay still in the car."

"Really?" Tess growled.

"Yeah. Come on." Rick hooked Tess' arm around his neck then brought her side to his, putting his hand on her waist. "Jon, get Henderson."

"Right." Jonathan mimicked Rick's motion with Henderson.

--

Another few minutes later, they had all gotten into the car and headed for the museum. Though most of Tess and Chase's pain had died down, it was still present, so when they both looked up at where they had come in, then at where they were supposed to go, which was very high up, they both looked at each other, imagining several sets of staircases. That wasn't going to work out again. "We'll stay in the car." They said simultaneously.

Rick nodded. "Good plan. Just keep an eye out."

"Got it."

It had barely even been ten minutes yet again until Tess heard something while trying to shift into a position that caused her the least pain. "What's that…?"

Chase also stopped fidgeting, listening. "Sound's coming from somewhere in front… Im… o…" he froze and stopped and looked at her, both realizing what the chant was saying. He rolled over into the driver's seat with difficulty, then looked around, honking the horn. He knew it wasn't the wisest idea, but they needed to tell the other somehow. "C'mon, c'mon…"

"Chase…"

Chase turned around, seeing Tess staring at a crowd of people coming their way. "Are you kidding me?!"

Tess patted the leather on the back. "Help me get this up. They're coming from one direction and only paying attention to what's in front of them… for now." Tess mumbled, getting up the leather top of the car so it somewhat blocked them from view. They also ducked down, waiting for them to pass. She was satisfied they kept walking until she saw Jonathan in the crowd, going along with the chant. "Oh God, Jon, what did they do to you?" she squinted, seeing him suddenly start walking backwards. She sighed in relief, realizing that it was just another one of his dumb plans that ended up saving his life on more than one occasion. She waited for the others to pass before lowering the top and waving him down.

Jonathan ran over to them. "There you are! I didn't see you! What were you doing?!"

"Same thing you were. Get in!" Tess insisted, pointing at the spot next to her.

Jonathan knew better than to object, jumping in. Within a few moments, Rick, Evy, Ardeth, and the curator also came out, getting into the car. Five people in the back was quite a cramped situation, but the reason they were there seemed to keep the realization it was cramped out of everyone's minds.

A moment later, Beni came running out and saw them, calling for Imhotep, giving their position away.

"You're gonna get yours, Beni! You're gonna get yours!" Rick called as Chase sped off.

"Oh, like I haven't heard that before!" Beni called back.

After driving for a while and not paying attention to the road ahead, the six people not diriving jumped when Chase slammed on the brakes. Their attention went to the front, where they all saw the crowd from before blocking the way.

"Everyone, hold on." Chase mumbled, getting a better grip on the steering wheel.

It didn't take long for them to realize why he had said that because a moment later, he was driving into the crowd, forcing them to move, or knocking into them. Within seconds the group was fighting to get the men who had latched themselves onto the car to get them off. They managed to get all of them off, but others were still in pursuit. After a while, they came to a dead end and were surrounded. Not having much choice, Chase drove into a produce cart, then helped everyone out of the car. They all backed up against the wall. Another few seconds passed and Imhotep approached them.

"And there he is…" the curator murmured.

Imhotep started talking, with Beni translating after. "Come with me my princess, it is time to make you mine, forever."

"For all eternity, idiot." Evy growled.

Tess glared at her. "Not the perfect time for corrections, Ev." She stepped in front of Evy protectively.

Imhotep just smirked at her attempt, then continued.

"Take my hand, and I will spare your friends."

"Oh dear…" Evy looked around.

"Evy, don't go for it, he's lying." Tess muttered.

"I'm not that dense, I know." Evy replied, still looking at the crowd. "You got any bright ideas?" she addressed Rick.

"I'm thinkin', I'm thinkin'." Rick tightened his grip on the torch he was holding.

"Well, let's think of something fast, because if he turns me into a mummy you're the first one I'm going after." Evy replied, and before the others knew it, she started heading towards Imhotep.

"Evy?!" Tess bjected.

"No!" Rick pulled out his gun, pointing it at Imhotep.

"Don't!" Evy shook her head. "He still has to take me to Hamunaptra to perform the ritual!" Evy told him.

"She is right. Live today, fight tomorrow." Ardeth agreed, having grabbed Rick's shooting arm to stop him from going further than raising it.

Rick snarled, then lowered the gun. He pointed the torch at Rick. "I'll be seeing you again."

A moment later, Beni took the key from Jonathan's jacket pocket. The objection that Jonathan made didn't go far.

Imhotep smirked and started walking away before he barked an order.

The way Evy started shrieking and pulling away as well as the crowd advancing on them, the group knew it had to be something similar to "kill them".

"Goodbye, my friends." Beni bowed before following Imhotep away.

Tess watched the crowd of infected people come at them even more. "New plan?"

"Run." Rick replied after looking down.

"Run where?" Chase inquired.

"Here!" Rick threw the torch at the crowd, then opened a pothole on the ground. He grabbed Jonathan and started to lower him down through the hole.

"What about our sister?" Jonathan asked.

"We're gonna get her back. Go."

The rest of the group started heading down into the sewer. After a couple of minutes of walking, Tess spoke up. "Are we all here?"

"No."

Tess turned, seeing Ardeth to her right. "Who's…?" she looked around, seeing the curator was missing. She thought she had seen him take his sword out to make a final stand. "Oh. Your friend."

Ardeth nodded.

Rick came in between them. "Guys, let's go."

"You have an idea?" Tess asked.

Rick nodded. "Yeah I do." He looked her up and down. "You're not gonna like it, though."


	12. Save the Damsel, Save the World

**A/N: Ahem… yeah… an update after year and two days late… cough. At least that's not my worst time gap with this series. I still can't believe I started this in '07 and still haven't finished the first movie... not to mention the beginning needs more revision. It's AWFUL... I've just been swamped with school, then work, and a couple of deaths of family and a friend. Anyways, here it is. Hope you can forgive me. I love y'all... more if you review, haha.**

**

* * *

**

"Tessie, uh… are you… okay?"

"Henderson, say a word to me and I swear, I will throw you out of this car." Tess growled, just as the group pulled up to the airfield Winston was based in.

"But why? It wasn't my idea!" Chase mumbled.

"Part of it was!" Tess snapped. "The rest was this one's!" she smacked Rick's head, being that she was right behind him inside the car.

Rick just grunted, then waved at one of the guards.

Chase snorted. "Tessie, all you have is my bandana 'roud yer neck an' newspaper tied to your stomach under your shirt."

"Exactly! It's like torture with this heat!" Tess complained.

Chase shook his head, then pointed at Ardeth. "You don't see him complainin'. He's in black from head to toe."

"Well, Desert Man is used to it by now." Tess shot back.

"He can hear you." Chase pointed out.

"I've learned it's better to tune your friend out." Ardeth replied.

"Good, the feeling's mutual." Tess shot back.

"Easy." Rick mumbled. "Winston's just up that hill. Tess, ready to get into character?"

"_Sure_, as ready as I am to kill you."

"Good." Rick hopped out of the car, then moved and practically dragged Tess out of the car. "Alright, _Ted_, you're gonna go up to him with me, explain what's going on, get a second plane, and fly it. I'll be in the other. Henderson's gonna be your literal wingm-" there was a thud behind him. He blinked a couple of times and turned, just in time to see her land face-first in the sand thanks to all the added bulk "…an." He finished.

Tess got up and brushed herself off before taking off the bandana. "That's it. I'm not doing this. As far as I'm concerned, I'm Mrs. Henderson and I just happen to know how to fly a plane. Amelia Earhart did it, why can't I? _Ted_ came down with a cold or something-"

"Hey, colds can be f-"

"I know they can be fatal, Ricky. I'm just not going to go along with this entire thing. Turn around." She ordered before turning slightly and unbuttoning part of her shirt to get the newspaper out. She dropped it on the ground and gave Chase's bandana a good tug down so it hung loosely around her neck as opposed to tight around it. "Let's go."

"Awww, so no more cross-dressing? No more Ted?"

It took Tess a moment to realize he was joking. She just glared at him, then followed him up the hill. Sure enough, there was Winston, listening to a record with a couple of people around him. Tess and Rick figured he was telling them a story of the old days.

"Hey, Winston!" Rick waved.

Winston looked over, then stood up straight upon seeing Tess. "My God, Richard. You never told me there was a woman in your company."

Rick flinched at his full name being used, then shrugged. "Figured my buddy Henderson here would wanna keep his wife away from all the other men."

Chase shrugged, playing along. "Guilty as charged. Can't let anyone steal this one away from me."

"Who could blame you, lad?" Winston replied before crossing the distance between Tess and himself. He lifted her hand and kissed it. "Such a beautiful woman should not at all be taken or given up."

Tess inadvertently let out a small giggle, then stopped, disturbed at how… happy it sounded. She hadn't sounded that happy in quite a while. She shot a glare in Ardeth's direction when he cleared his throat.

Rick grunted and headed Ardeth's action. "Look, Winston, we need your help with something."

Winston studied his old friend. "You make it sound like this is quite serious, O' Connell."

"Well, that's 'cause it is."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Well, you probably won't live through it."

"By Jove, you really think so?"

"Well, everyone else who has helped us has died, why not you?" Jonathan returned.

Tess elbowed him.

Jonathan shot her a look. "I'm telling him the facts. He deserves to know."

"You don't know him. The less he knows, the less likely he is to harm himself, thank you very much!" Tess hissed back.

Winston paid no mind to them. "What's the challenge, then?"

"Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world." Rick replied.

Winston looked at Tess. "She looks to be in no danger."

"Different damsel, buddy." Rick replied.

"Ah,Winston Havelock at your service, sir, haha!" He saluted.

Tess sighed. "Do I really have to repeat myself?" She muttered to Chase.

Chase chuckled. " What, 'here we go'? Nope. We're all thinking it, Tessie. So what do we do, now?"

* * *

Within minutes, they were flying planes, trying to find what remained of Hamunaptra, once more. One thing Tess failed to count on- or saw coming, for that matter, was the fact that Chase wasn't one for flying. As she flew the plane, at every turn or even slight decent, he would cringe, hold on to the side of the cockpit tighter, and call for her to take it easier. A lot of good that did in the middle of a desert. She had been in mid-turn to tell him to cowboy up when she spotted what looked like a dust devil about one or two hundred feet back. She turned to the other men to see if they had seen it. Sure enough. Winston pointing at it and apparently calling back to Rick answered her question for her. They all kept their eyes trained on it, until it suddenly stopped.

"Hey, after what that guy did in the hotel… I ain't too convinced that's nature's work!" Chase called over the engine.

"Same!" Tess called back. She looked at Winston's plane again to see how they were handling it, then a rather loud boom came from behind them.

"Uh… Tessie? Goin' faster might help!"

Tess glanced over her shoulder to see the oncoming sandstorm. That dust devil was certainly not nature, and she was sure as Hell that storm wasn't, either. "RICK!" The call for her friend was lost on the wind and other noise. She made the plane accelerate, waiting to see what the others would do. Diving down after they passed a cliff wasn't something she saw coming, either way. "Hey, Chase… prepare to hate me!"

"Why's that?" Chase called back, but he too got a quick answer when he went from looking straight to looking up, and his stomach flipped. Once they leveled again, Chase looked at her as best he could. "Really? _REALLY_?"

"…They started it."

The argument was short-lived because the face coming out of the sandstorm was enough to shut Chase up, and upon seeing it in the mirror, caused Tess to curse.

After a while, Henderson spoke up again. "Faster, faster! Faster would be better!"

A few seconds later, Rick attempted to shoot it, hope seemed to be lost for them, because moments later, the face quite literally roared before swallowing both planes. For moments that seemed like minutes, the planes were lost in the red-orange sand before it cleared, once again suddenly. However, all the members of each plane seemed to realize it was too late for them to pull up, because each of them let out yells of alarm before one plane glided along the sand before the propeller caught the ground and caused the plane to crash, or the plane bounced on the sand a couple of times before crashing as well.

Tess' world went black, just for a couple of minutes before she came to, either from hearing Chase talking to her or feeling him smack her cheek.

"Come on, wake up. Don't die on me now, girl."

Tess let out a tiny moan to acknowledge she was at least conscious, unsure about being injured or not.

"Good. Let's try and get you outta here."

She let him hook his arms under hers and pulled her up and out of the cockpit. "Can you walk?" He asked once they were free, not willing to let her go.

Tess took a step and stumbled before recovering. "…Kind of. Leg hurts, obviously. I don't think it's broken, though." She looked at him, noticing a small gash above his eyebrow. "You don't look to good, either." She brushed her fingers across his hairline to get some of the hair out of the wound.

"I've had worse. I think the others crash over that hill. Let's see if they need help. Here." He put one arm around her and leaned into her so she could use him for support with walking. They made it over the hill, met halfway by Ardeth.

"Hi. Is everyone okay?"

"I believe so. You two clearly are not." Ardeth pointed out.

"We can manage." Tess replied. "Let's get down there."

The three made their way over to where Rick and Jonathan were. Tess frowned, seeing Rick let his hand from Winston's neck. "He didn't…?"

Rick looked at her sadly. "He's with his real buddies now."

Tess turned to Winston- or at least his body, and had to smile. He looked somehow… peaceful. She leaned in and kissed the older man's cheek. "Thanks for all the help and laughs, hon." There was a beat, then she yelped as the ground suddenly gave in under her. Rick grabbed her arm and yanked her back just as Ardeth barked at them to get back, and that the section of the plane Winston was in had landed in quicksand. They scrambled back and watched as the plane sunk into the sand. Tess looked at Rick when she saw him salute out of the corner of her eye. She leaned on his forearm. "Like you said, he's with his buddies now."

Rick nodded after a moment. "We have to get Evy."

"Yeah…" Jonathan and Tess deadpanned before following him towards the ruins of the Lost City. Somehow, they had managed to regroup: Rick, Chase, and Jonathan in the front, and Tess and Ardeth in the back. After a while of dead silence between the latter two, Ardeth looked at her. "Your friend Winston… how long did you know him?"

Tess chuckled. "Quite a few years… with gaps in between, of course. You could've blown me over when we ran into him here."

Ardeth looked away for a moment. "Your… words. You made it seem like you were very close to him."

Tess studied him, realizing that he was trying- hard, at that, to make civil conversation. She'd be lying if she said she didn't appreciate it. "Not really close, but close enough, if that makes sense… he did a lot for me in the old days, put it that way."

Ardeth nodded in understanding again. "…I'm sorry."

Tess smiled weakly. "Thanks. That uh… that reminds me… I just acknowledged your friend's death… you guys seemed closer than Winston and I were… I'm sorry I didn't say sorry about his loss, too."

Ardeth nodded once more. Just like that, the situation suddenly became awkward. They walked in silence until Rick turned to everyone and said that they were back. _Time to save the damsel in distress. Won't this be fun?_

_

* * *

_

**A/N: Hope you Firefly/Serenity fans enjoyed the little reference I put in there. Anyways, you guys might hate me for the wait, but you must like that I finally updated, so let me know what you thought! Drop a review!**_  
_


	13. The Little Voice in My Head

**A/N: Don't own the Mummy, blah blah, blah. Anyway, this is chapter of the first movie, yaaaay. I'm keeping the Mummy Returns under this one too, to see if I can FINALLY break the 100 reviews line. This one seems pretty promising for it. Hope you guys enjoy, and don't forget to tell me what you thought. **

**

* * *

**

"Get the little ones! Come on, put your backs into it!"

Tess sent a warning look at Jonathan as he coached the boys who were digging rocks out from a collapsed part of the tunnel. Unlike them, he was just staring and not helping at all. She tensed when the three other men did, and arched an eyebrow when Rick looked at her. The American smiled sarcastically and handed her a medium-sized rock. "Please do the honors when we do the work, here."

"Sure." Tess turned her body and dropped the rock on Jonathan's foot, causing him to yelp. She tuned him out when he went on and on about how she was lucky she was his sister and not some random person. She would never want 'to be sorry.' "Would you get in there and help them?"

"Show me an open spot and I will, Tessie." Jonathan replied, turning around. He spotted a drawing on the wall, containing several blue and gold scarabs. "Hm." He meandered over to investigate, and Tess turned back to watch the boys at work, telling them where the rocks looked lose every so often.. She glanced backwards at Jonathan when he asked them to come and look at one of the scarabs, but returned to the task at hand when there was a small rumble and the others bolted back to make sure the wall wouldn't come down on them. Once they were satisfied that it was intact, they returned to their work. That was, until Jonathan let out a scream of mixed fright and pain.

Everyone turned just in time to see a raised circular shape quickly making its way up Jonathan's arm- under the skin.

Tess let out a scream herself, clapping her hands over her mouth. "Is that a-?"

"Scarab. Move!" Rick practically shoved her out of the way, marching over to Jonathan and pulling out his knife, trying to tune out Jonathan's pleas for him to do something. He brought the knife up to Jonathan's shoulder as the scarab reached the area, and stabbed into it, again trying to ignore Jonathans protests. He managed to get ahead of the scarab and with a skilled flick of his wrist, got the beetle out of the Englishman's arm.

The beetle landed back-first a few feet away. It righted itself, then went to return to what would've been its meal. Rick shot it to smithereens after it managed to make it two feet.

After Tess realized she could breathe again, she looked down, realizing Jonathan had a vice grip on her own arm. "Let me see your shirt. Let's get that wrapped up. Hey, Ardeth, you have a knife?"

Ardeth grunted, then reached down and retrieved a knife from his boot. He handed it to her, and she looked from the object to him. "Your boot? Really?"Ardeth merely shrugged. "You would understand if you knew the other types of people we have dealt with in the past."

Tess nodded, accepting that as a decent answer, she turned back to her brother. "Okay, sleeve?"

Jonathan held out his good arm and looked away as she cut part pf his sleeve away and started wrapping the injury, then cut more to make a sling. Once she was done, she gave him a gentle pat on the cheek. "You're all set."

Jonathan grunted. "Speak for yourself."

Chase punched Jonathan's good arm lightly. "Hey, could be worse, think of that."

"…Do you even realize how obnoxious you are, Henderson?" Jonathan demanded.

"Hey, hey, easy!" Rick stepped in between them. "We gotta save your sister, remember? Now let's go."

The group continued on, coming to a large crevice in the wall. With some difficultly, they made their way through it, and when they all managed to regroup on the other side, the sight to behold after Rick shot one of the mirrors to provide light stunned them into silence. The large chamber they were in was filled to each corner with gold and other treasures. The group slowly advanced, letting it all sink in.

Jonathan was the first to speak. "Do you see…?"

"Yes."

"Can you believe…"

"Yes…"

"Can we just-"

While Chase added a 'please' to Jonathan's suggestion, the others said 'no.' They continued to walk forward until they heard what sounded like an inhuman laugh. They all turned in different direcitons, looking for the source. A moment later, several hands burst up from the ground, followed by strange roars. The ground crumbled around the appendages and then full bodies came out- more mummies, they all realized.

"Who the Hell are these guys?" Rick asked.

"Priests. Imhotep's priests." Ardeth replied.

"Alright, then." Rick started shooting them, and the men followed suit. Tess grabbed a gold staff that was nearest her and took a swing at the nearest undead priest. Without even calculating the next move, she turned and half swung, half twirled the staff, hitting another one. She stopped to wonder where the Hell that had come from. She had never twirled anything like that on her life, meanwhile it came natrally. Her wondering was cut short when another priest came at her, and she jabbed at him, forcing him back so Ardeth could shoot him. The medjai grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her back when the others started heading down another hallway. They continued to run, shooting backwards every so often to keep the priests off their tails until they reached a statue- the statue of Horus.

"There he is! Hello, Horus old boy!" Jonathan beamed, going over to it, immediately trying to figure out how to open it. Tess bent down, trying to make out as many of the heiroglyphs as possible. It was a horrid attempt to begin with, but worse with the gunfire going on, followed by the sound of dynamite exploding. "What the Hell, Rick?"

Rick looked up at her and blinked, trying to act as innocent as possible. "What? I'm keeping them out! Ardeth helped!"

Ardeth shot Rick a nasty look, but being that he really just increased the intensity of the one that had been on his face, Tess didn't think much of it.

However, the noise the mummy priests had made continued, this time from the other side of the room.

Rick looked up from the panel he had been attempting to get off with Jonathan and Chase's help. "These guys just don't quit, do they?

"Rick, Ardeth has the mummies handled. You do that." Tess replied, doing another attempt at reading the heiroglyphs. The statue was in horrible condition so there might not have been a chance, but after the first salt acid experience, she didn't want to take chances with her friends.

"What do you think we're doing, Tessie?" Rick demanded, leaning back to try and get leverage on the box.

Tess turned back to Ardeth to find he was staring at his gun. "Somethin' wrong?"

Ardeth just glanced at her, then back at his gun. He looked in the direction of the mummies and let the arm he had been holding the gun up with drop.

Tess frowned. "What is it."

"There's one way to end this, and I'm doing it.." Ardeth replied.

Tess merely blinked. "How…?"

Ardeth turned his attention back to the men, who had been watching the exchange. "Save the girl. Kill the creature." He charged down the open hallway, right into the brunt of the undead priests.

Tess stared, stunned, but knew it would be a bad idea, just running after him to try and help. It would probably end with both of them getting killed.

"Tessie! We got the book. Get over here!" Rick called. "We gotta blow that opening up!"

"But Ardeth-"

"Tess, he might be gone… and I mean _gone_."

"So you don't give him a chance if he's not? He just risked his life for us!" Part of her was laughing on the inside. That damn little talk made her opinion on him do a one-eighty and now she realized he wasn't that bad of a man, and now of course, it was probably too late to spend time with him with that opinion set in.

"Exactly. He'd want us to do this, anyway." Rick crossed the distance between them and pulled her back. "Look, I'm sorry. He was growin' on me, too, but we gotta do this." He lights another stick of dynamite and tosses it at the opening Ardeth had just gone through.

They all made it through the last remaning path out of the area. It led to a large staircase. They started making their way down it. Tess froze upon seeing her sister chained to a stone table in the middle of the room the stairs led to. Not only that, but Imhotep was there, holding a knife over her. He looked like he was preparing to bring it down into her stomach, too. Tess screamed her sister's name before she even knew she did it, and she panicked, just for a moment, but then realized Jonathan had also shouted to Evy, though he announced he had the right book.

"Shut up and get me off here! Open it, Jonathan! It's the only way to kill him! Open it and find the inscription!"

As Imhotep slowly lowered his arms, Jonathan fiddled around with the book, trying to get it to open. "I can't find it, it's locked or something!" He, as well as everyone around him, realized just what he was missing. "We need the key, Evy!"

"It's inside his robes!" Evy shouted back, just as Imhotep started walking towards the stairs.

The four of them bolted in different directions to avoid the High Priest. Rick went right and vaulted over some of the remaining stairs to get to Evy, Jonathan ran backwards to keep distance between him and Imhotep, and Tess and Chase went left to try and find a path leading down to the lower level to help Rick. They found one and ran into the area just in time to see that Imhotep had summoned even more followers, and Rick was putting up a Hell of a fight. Using the weapons they had before, they joined in. However, while the lower priests didn't seem to have any order or knowledge, these new ones did. They managed to separate the three fighters and it ended up being three on one. With a fair bit of difficultly, they managed to fight their three off and regrouped, with Rick dragging Evy behind him. A few moments later, more mummy warriors were ready to meet them.

Rick scoffed. "Well, this just keeps getting better and better."

Tess nodded and spun the staff again subconsciously. "That's something you never wanna say, R-ICK!" She barely had time to see another mummy, one who looked female, grab Evy from behind and drag her off before one of the warriors shoved her back. She stumbled, nearly falling into a pool of odd colored liquid before she got her balance back. She launched herself forward and stabbed the warrior before moving back, ending up back to back with Chase. "How're you doing with yours?"

"Could be better. You?" Chase replied, shooting one of the warriors in the shoulder, then head.

"Eh, same. Duck!"

Chase did as he was told and Tess leaned back against him and turned her body so she could avoid one of the warrior's swords. She managed a kick that knocked it back a couple of feet than stabbed it, shoving it back into the strange liquid. It let out a shriek before it turned to dust, and the remnants sank into the liquid. Tess stared in disbelief. Just what was that in the pool? She turned as she heard another warrior come up behind her. She went to stab it, but it dodged the attack. As if she wasn't confused enough with knowing how to weild the staff as a weapon, something else happened that made her question her sanity. Another voice came into her head. It was distant, as if it was a memory- a memory without the visual aspect. The voice was masculine. It was deep, but held an odd gentleness to it_. "Don't be afraid to move your feet. Movement will save you."_ Without realizing it, she followed the voice's lead, including the instructions that continued. _"Parry. Thrust. Swing. Good, very good_._ Your lessons are paying off, after all. That pleases me_." A chuckle from the voice followed. As soon as it had began, the voice was gone. She snapped out of it and looked around for any trace of her family or friends. "Jon? Evy?"

Evy shrieked in the not-so-far distance and she took off towards her. She arrived just in time to see Evy get tossed to the floor by the female mummy. "Evelyn!" She ran at the female mummy, but in turn, also ended up getting tossed backward. She cursed as she landed on her shoulder and slowly got back up to her knees, holding it, praying that the pain would stop shortly. She heard Jonathan yell something, then the whole atmosphere seemed to change. A few moments later, she froze, seeing the warriors coming towards her. She braced herself for another fight, surprised when they went right past her. She blinked in confusion when they headed for the female mummy, and was just about beside herself when they started stabbing it.

"Anck-Su-Namun!"

_That was clearly Imhotep. So that thing was his undead girlfriend? Hm. Birds of a feather. _She got to her feet and helped Evy to hers before they headed over to Jonathan, who was holding the book open, looking quite accomplished. Evy took the book from her brother and immediately started reading the spells. Tess looked around, looking for the other two who were missing. While Chase came over a few moments later, Tess spotted Rick being choked by Imhotep. "Rick!"

Upon hearing her voice, then the spell, Imhotep turned his attention to the others, dropping Rick as he did so.

Rick stumbled back to the others and got up in front of them protectively, just as Evy finished the spell. An odd blue light came from the top ot the stairwell they had been on minutes before. A ghostly chariot came out of that light, and it went right through Imhotep before turning around and heading back up the stairs, a ghostly form of Imhotep being dragged in back of it. However, the undead priest was still there in the flesh, chasing after it. After the chariot disappeared and the light faded, Imhotep turned and started advancing on them.

"I thought you said it was gonna kill him!" Rick objected, holding up the sword he had gotten during one of his fights.

"He's mortal." Evy replied.

The others cringed as Imhotep closed the gap between them, then all stopped as Imhotep practically walked right into Rick's sword, to say the least. The priest stopped and stumbled back, clutching his stomach. Unlike Tess, he stumbled right back into the pool of odd liquid and started to sink into it. His skin decomposed as he did so, and right before he sank, he said something.

"Death… is only the beginning…" Evy translated after she was satisfied that the mummy wasn't coming back up for more.

They all sighed, thinking it was over. They all relaxed, but it was short lived. The entire room started shaking, and several of the walls started to close in.

"Time to go!" Rick announced before grabbing Evy's hand and bolting for the nearest path out of the room. They all scrambled out, but not before Jonathan tripped and ended up dropping the Book into another pool. Evy skidded to a halt and went to get it back, but the others went back and dragged her on once again. They failed to see Beni until they made it under a wall that was coming down and Beni shouted for help. Rick dropped to the floor, offering his hand, but the wall came down too quick. Rick's farewell was a quick, empty one before they continued on. They barely managed to make it out of the city, but they did, and stopped just to watch the rest of it go down. None of them could believe that they had been in it only minutes before, and now look at all the destruction.

This time they were certain it was over, so they all started taking deep breaths, trying to regulate everything. They knew that wouldn't quite work for some time. Once again, it came to a crashing halt when Jonathan let out a scream and turned around. The others jumped, not at all expecting it, then were relieved and surprised to see Ardeth, who had put his hand on Jonathan's hand, startling him.

"Ardeth!" Tess beamed. "You sly dog!" She slapped his leg. "What the Hell?" She demanded.

Ardeth just smiled back, then looked at the others. "You have earned the respect and gratitude of my people."

"Yeah, well, it was nothing." Jonathan waved him off.

Ardeth nodded, then looked down. "Which is why we ask one more thing of you… well, one of you."

"Here we go." Jonathan groaned.

"You all showed strength and perseverance that none of my peope expected. We would like one of you to… join our cause. Go back and forth from here to your home, telling us of any attempts of people trying to come back here and awaken Imhotep again."

Rick blinked. "You mean he can come back?"

"It happened this time, did it not?" Ardeth asked.

Rick grunted and shrugged. "True."

Ardeth nodded and looked at each of them. "We need one of you with that strength, that confidence, the bravery…" his eyes fell on Rick.

Rick shook his head. "Uh, no. After this? No way. I'm not doin' that job." He looked at Tess. "But if your people are good with a woman doing that job, this one might be good for it."

"Rick!" Tess objected.

Rick grinned. "What? You seemed to like the adventure. You'd be perfect." He looked at Ardeth. "Wouldn't she?"

Ardeth nodded. "She would." His eyes fell on her once again.

Just like that, something in her decided to go for it. "Ah, why not. Can I just spend more time back home then here?"

Ardeth nodded. "Fair enough."

Chase scoffed. "She ain't comin' here a lot alone. She could use help… and a friend. If she does this, I do too."

Ardeth arched an eyebrow, then considered it. "You are right, and you certainly fit the part. I'm sure we can work something out."

Tess beamed and looked at Chase, who winked at her and put an arm around her shoulders. What could be so horrible about keeping an eye on certain archeological digs and reporting back every so often? It sounded okay to her. "Fine, then. When do we start?"

* * *

**A/N:Well, how was that? Got a cliffhanger, some mystery, it's all coming together. Drop a line or two, or a few… I'd love to hear what you guys think. Again, The Mummy Returns will start in the next chapter, with a similiar style as the first chapter... just better... much better.  
**


	14. Back in Business

**A/N: (Offers chapter as Christmas gift to all of you) :D… it's short, but that's because it's the holidays and everything here at home is crazy. **

**Alright, time to start this thing. Now, hopefully this won't throw you off too much from the first chapter's intro, because I'm going to fix things here and try to fix up the first chapter's intro so it works better with the storyline to come as opposed to the one I thought up a couple of years back. It will be confusing now with the new developments, but things will fall into place soon. **

**Brunette: Thanks for the critisism, and don't think I'm shooting you down or anything, but as I said in the last chapter's A/N and just now in this one, I'm fully aware that facts are strewn up and some things are unrealistic. This is three years old by then, and I wasn't fully aware of all that back then. I was also trying to keep close to the storyline I had in the first version, so I was kind of stuck. I plan to go back and change everything when I get the chance. I'm more focused on finishing things first then going back yet. **

**The rest of you reviewers have been awesome as well, and I can only hope that you guys will continue to be just as awesome. Well, here starts the Mummy Returns, and I hope you guys enjoy the beginning. Hope you guys have a good holiday season, no matter what you celebrate. **

**

* * *

**

_Brian arched an eyebrow at the written pages that followed in the letter. "There's more?" He looked at his twin sister, who was looking at a couple of hardcover books. "What's that?"_

_Kat held up the book, The Mummy Returns. "You know, why I didn't think about it before. Great Aunt Evelyn's book… it's real. It's all real."_

_Brian nodded. "I guess so. Why didn't Dad tell us, then?"_

_Kat shrugged. "Didn't want us in on the old family business, I guess." She replied with a chuckle. "You know, when I read this, I loved it."_

_Brian smirked. "Well then, let's check out the other sister's story, hm?" The same mischievous gleam in his eyes passed down throughout the generations with Henderson blood had not missed him at all. His blue eyes almost glowed with it, and his smirk showed no different. He looked back at the papers, tossing aside a family tree that looked like it had been made by their father. The gave it a quick passing glance, looking over the rows and columns, going from two generations before Jonathan, Evy, and Tess, and where the Henderson family weaved its way into it a few generations later. They would have to look at that more closely later on. They looked back at the remaining pages and were lost to the world that belonged to generations before them once again._

_

* * *

_

A little girl with bright blue eyes and dark brown hair stared at the door connecting the foyer and the expansive living room in what she considered to be her aunt and uncle's castle. All the adults called it a manor, whatever that meant. The five year old looked down at her feet, swinging to and fro since she was perched on one of the stools by the big staircase. It was very easy for a little girl to feel quite alone in a house so big. She sighed. Where was her mom and little brother? She just didn't get what could've taken them so long. She was just about to jump off the stool and go in search of them when the door swung open and her favorite Uncle came through the door, wearing her favorite hat she had. "Uncle Rick, Uncle Rick, Uncle Rick!"

Rick O'Connell barely had time to drop the suitcases he had in hand before the girl flew into his arms. "Hi, Princess! How's my little niece doin', huh?"

"Good. How was your trip?" She asked, getting a better hold around his neck, and happily accepting the kiss she received from him and her Aunt Evy when Rick's wife came up behind them.

"The usual. Fun that you shouldn't have 'til after you're thirty." Rick replied. "Where's your mom, Lia?"

Alia Carnhan shrugged. "Les ran out of the house when Mom was getting something so she ran out after him."

"What?" Evy shrieked. "Oh my God, I should go find her to help. That boy has twice the energy he should."

"No need, Eve!" Tess replied, coming in through the back door behind the stairs, holding a struggling boy with the same features as his sister. "I've got him, now. How was your trip?"

"Nothing more than usual. Here, give me my nephew." Evy instructed with a smile, taking the two year old from her sister.

Tess laughed. "Does that mean 'not in front of the kids'?"

Evy sent her sister a tight-lipped smile and nodded.

Tess' grin widened. "Can I get a hint?"

"We drank from the Nile." Evy replied without letting her smile drop.

Tess's smile faded, wondering what that could mean after all of their adventures.

Evy nodded, then looked at Rick. "Which reminds me, I have a proposition for all of you. We just need babysit-" She stopped and flinched when Alia let out another shriek upon seeing her cousin come out of hiding, dragging a box behind him. Once the shriek was over with, Evy watched her niece run to her son, Alex, and give him the biggest hug she could muster.

The blonde boy smiled, almost a little too enthusiastically and hugged the girl back. "Hi, Lia."

Alia let go of him and then attached herself to Rick's leg.

Rick sighed. "I'm not gonna get this stuff put away anytime tonight, am I?"

Tess laughed again. "Lia, come on. Let Uncle Rick go."

"I don't wanna!" The girl objected.

Rick leaned over. "I'll tell you the story about how your mom and dad learned to like each other if you do!"

"Yay!" Alia let go of the man's leg.

Tess whacked Rick's arm lightly. "Rick! I'm supposed to tell her and Les that story, not you!"

Rick nodded. "Oh, I know." He replied, then glanced at Alia before looking over her shoulder and pointing at something. "Look, a distraction!" He yelled, then when his niece turned to see what he was pointing at, which in turn was just vase, laughed and grabbed two of the suitcases, running up the stiars before Alia could catch him.

"That was mean, Uncle Rick!" Alia yelled up after him.

"I know, I'm sorry! I love you, Lia!" Rick called back down.

"I love you too, Uncle Rick!" And just like that, Rick was forgiven.

Tess laughed, then took her son from Evy. "Let me put this one to bed. He's up far too late. His father will kill me if I don't."

Alia scowled. "Daddy won't kill you! He'll find a way to blame Uncle Rick and kill him!" She objected.

Tess laughed. "You spend too much time with your uncles, Lia." The look on her daughter's face showed she didn't mind in the slightest. "I'll be right back, sweetheart. Play with Alex for a couple of minutes."

She headed up the stairs and into the old nursery, where Rick had set up Alex's old crib to accommodate Les. She passed Jonathan's room and could've sworn she heard him laugh nervously, but when she heard a woman's voice, she sighed and continued on. Her brother seemed to be entertaining a new woman every other night. It was hardly the place or time to do so, but there was no convincing him otherwise. She made it into her room and put Les in his crib, watching him settle in. She waited until he had fallen asleep, just moments later, before leaving and heading back the stairs. She saw Evy in the living room, not noticing that her sister looked stunned until she was in the entryway to the room. "Ev, what's wrong?" She glanced at Alia and Alex, who looked frightened. "Ev…?" She followed her sister's eyeline, then jumped when she saw what they were all looking at. There was a man in the opposite corner of the room, sneering at them. He was tall, muscular, and wielding a sword. There was a small group of men behind him, wearing similar garb to him.

He looked Tess over. "Good. More of you dead will make this job easier."

"What…?" Evy hesitated, then both women yelped when the man raised his sword and charged. They both bolted in opposite directions. Tess took Alex and Alia with her, shoving them down one of the hallways that had doors on the end. "Hide and don't come out until you hear one of us. Got it?"

Alex nodded rapidly, putting a protective arm around his cousin, watching in awe as Tess had to back up since one of the intruders had gone to attack her. His aunt fought her attacker off, then grabbed two of the swords from the rack in the corner. Tess returned to the hallway Alex and Alia were in, then slammed the doors shut and ran one of the swords through the door handles. Sure, the newcomers could easily open it, but it would give the women extra time to get to the doors if come need be. She tossed the other word in the air and caught it to get a better grip. She charged at one of the men who was fighting her sister, and got shoved back in turn.

Tess whirled around when she finally realized someone had whipped right passed her. "Hey!" went to attack the latest arrival, then relaxed when she realized she knew who had come in- and was their ally. "Ardeth!" She merely blinked at her husband's random but extremely well-timed arrival.

With his arrival, the fighting seemed to cease. The women immediately wanted to know why. "Ardeth, what are you doing here?"

"Perhaps explanations are best left for later." He replied without looking at either of them. "Where are the children?"

"Safe," Tess replied.

"Good…" Ardeth nodded again, then turned his attention to the leader of the red-clad men.

The man sneered. "Ardeth Bey."

"Loch-Nah."

And the fight broke out again as the leader, apparently Loch-Nah, charged at Ardeth. Swords clashed, punches were thrown, and the room was filled with yells or grunts of pain.

"What's in the chest?" Ardeth called over the crowd.

Tess glanced over at him. What chest was he talking about?

"The Bracelet of Anubis!" Evy replied over the constant hum of the fight.

Judging by the fact that Ardeth let his guard down enough for his latest attacker to get in a punch. Tess ran to his aide when he jumped back to inform Evelyn of the seemingly-obvious fact that whoever these people were, they couldn't get the bracelet. Since when wasn't that part of the job that they had all been forced into? The bad guys couldn't get whatever object Evy just happened to find. "Ardeth, duck!" She called, seeing another one of the intruders come at him once they had separated.

In turn, Ardeth pushed her out of the way of the same man once he had fought him off. The action only made them get another couple of men after each of them. They headed of in opposite directions, trying to get any distance on the other that they could. They did manage to fight the new person off, then both turned their attention to the other woman in the room, being that Evelyn let out a pained yelp. They both turned, just in time to see one of the men toss Evelyn over their shoulder and head for the door.

"Evy!"

"Evelyn!"

The two of them headed for the door, after the group of intruders that had run for the door after Evelyn's captor. One of the last ones out delivered a rough kick to Tess' stomach, and the woman stumbled back.

Having a sinking feeling that Evelyn was going to be a lost cause shortly, Ardeth ran to her side and looped an arm around her. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, just… try to get Evy! I'll get Alex and Alia!"

"Are you sure?"

"Ardeth, go!" Tess ordered, and the man was out the door in moments. Tess hopped over fallen furniture and over to the door. She grabbed the sword barring the doors and tossed it away. "Alex, it's me. It's alright- well, not quite, but-" She launched herself back when the doors flung open, and Alex was in front of her a moment later.

The boy looked around the room, observing the damage and the fact that his mother and his uncle that he barely saw were gone, and the door that opened into the front yard was open. "Mum?" He charged out of the room.

"Alex, no!" Tess yelled after him.

Alia blinked at her mother. "Mommy, what's going on?"

"We're about to find out, sweetheart." Tess picked her up, then headed after Alex. "Alex!"

"Evelyn!"

Tess was barely aware that she even heard her brother-in-law's voice until he whipped past her. Her head snapped in the direction he was running. She frowned and her heart sank, seeing Evelyn screaming, stuffed into the back of a quickly-retreating car. "Evy!"

Again, it seemed like a lost cause. There was no way they could keep up with the car on foot without knowing where they were going. Tess let out a whimper that matched the girl in her arms', though it was for a completely different reason. "Alia, we promise we'll tell you what's happening soon." She replied, glancing over at Rick, who looked even more confused than she was. She turned back to her daughter. "First, I-" She stopped short when Rick turned on Ardeth and practically threw him against one of the statues by the driveway. "Rick!"

"Shut up, Tess! You! Why are you back with no explanation, and where did they take my wife?" Rick demanded.

"RICK!" Tess repeated. Rick just tightened his grip on Ardeth's collar. She sighed and put Alia down, going over to the men. "Both of you, stop this now. We're all tired and confused and all of us look like we just dealt with two different fights! Killing each other isn't going to help us at all!"

She managed to pry the fingers on Rick's left hand away from Ardeth's collar, and Rick reluctantly dropped his other hand.

Tess turned his attention back to Ardeth, who looked like he was debating whether or not to say something. "That doesn't put you off the hook. What did we all miss?"

Ardeth just glanced at her for a moment, then took a deep breath- the sign that there was a long explanation coming. She knew she had to hear it, but she knew that she didn't want to, all the same.

By the looks of it, they were about to be back in business.

* * *

**A/N: Sooo, what happened in the past nine years for everyone? Next chapter comes with a glimpse of the past. Anyway, (looks at the number of times I used 'intruder') Hide yo kids, hide yo wife… ugh. It's my friend's fault. He couldn't stop singing it.**

**"Look, a distraction! (runs)" - © my friend, Glenn. He made me do this, for the record.**

**And, last but not least, reviews are Christmas presents under the proverbial tree... or... imaginary virtual one, but... they're presents all the same (puppy eyes) Go on and review. You know you wanna.  
**


	15. Taken

**A/N: Yeah, so the last update was… around Christmastime (laughs nervously). Well, that won't happen. The next update should be in the next couple of weeks, because this chapter is short, and I owe it to you people. I edited what happens in this chapter from the last version, but… I like the last version's cutoff point, so I'm keeping that, thus why it's shorter. Enjoy. Can we make it to one hundred reviews this time, despite the length? Please? Haha.**

* * *

_Nine years ago:_

_Chase Henderson looked around uneasily at the sight in front of him. He and Tess had been off the boat for about ten minutes, and now they were surrounded by men on horseback. The only positive was that they had a med-jai vibe. If they didn't, well, both of them knew they were in serious trouble. He looked at his companion and tightened his grip on his rucksack that was leaning across his back. "I can get my gun in about three seconds-"_

_Tess hit him in the arm. "Shhh. We should already count our blessings. Our boat didn't get attacked or set on fire. Something tells me we have Ardeth to thank for that one." She muttered, then stepped forward, addressing the men on horseback. She figured they wouldn't understand much, except for one thing. "Ardeth Bey," She said, glancing between the unmoving faces. She sighed and pointed to Chase and herself. "We…" She hesitated when she tried to think of the next motion. "Are…" She pointed down. "To see…" She pointed at her eyes. She hesitated once again, then moved her hand up so it was a few seconds, then crossed her arms and tried to look as defiant as possible. "Ardeth Bey," She finished._

_The men continued to stare, and then Tess managed to see most of them were scowling at her, or sizing her up like a piece of meat. "Right… culture and women. Fantastic." She grabbed for Chase, and when she came in contact with his arm, she pulled him forward. "Your turn to try."_

_"No need, Ms. Carnhan."_

_The other two sighed in relief, recognizing Ardeth's voice in the new shout._

_Sure enough, Ardeth came around the corner, also on horseback, leading two other horses. The man turned to his men, said something in their language, then watched as the men cleared out. Ardeth turned back to Chase and Tess, then motioned at the horses. "Come. We have much to talk about on the way, before you meet the other chieftains."_

_"… Like?" Tess asked._

_"Where and when you should not be alone, Ms. Carnhan…" He looked at Chase. "And where and who is in your company when you should watch your temper, Mr. Henderson."_

_The other two looked at each other. Yeah. That wasn't very supportive. They had discussed on the train what a bad idea this could've ended up being. They had a feeling they should've kept that idea in mind and stayed on the damn boat._

* * *

1933:

It took way too long in Tess' opinion to run back inside to get her son after she broke up Rick and Ardeth's fight. She had left right after Ardeth was about to explain things, so she had a feeling she had missed it all by the time she made it back out. However, it was apparently easier said than done. By the time Tess had gotten back into the courtyard, the men were just getting into Rick's car. "What's going on?"

"We're gonna get my wife back, that's what." Rick replied, then turned to the others. He pointed at Ardeth ."You, lighten up." He pointed at Alex. "You, big trouble." He pointed at Jonathan. "You, get in the car." He looked back at Tess. "You, go back inside and hold down the fort with Lia."

Tess scoffed. "What? No! If you're going after my sister, I'm coming with you." She watched Alex crawl into the backseat. "So I can't, but you're taking your eight year old son with you?"

"Yeah, well, he has a lead, you don't. Look, if these guys are creeps, I'm not letting them get your hands on you, too." Rick replied. "I doubt Ardeth is gonna argue with me there, either."

"Not at all." Ardeth nodded.

Tess glared at each and every one of the men. She only received a sympathetic shrug from her brother. A lot of good that did. "If you run into any trouble…"

"We'll be back and you can kick ass, don't worry." Rick replied.

Tess shook her head. "Whatever. Just be careful. Ardeth, come here." He followed the order, and she kissed him. "You owe Lia, Les and I time alone."

"It will happen," Ardeth replied, then kissed the children on the forehead before getting back into the car. Tess watched them go, then headed back inside. She put Les down on the couch, and told Alia to sit with him and stay put. She wasn't taking any more chances after the attack tonight. She got a sword out from the rack in the corner, and left the living room. She sat on the opposite side of the entryway into the room and listened for any foreign sound. She glanced down at the sword. She still remembered the last time she had to use one as a weapon. That voice in her head was as clear as it was those years ago. She had heard it at certain times since, as well. She had never so much as met someone with the voice, so it was still a mystery to her. Her head snapped up when she heard something bang on the window, but relaxed when she saw it was just a branch that hit it. She went over to double check, to find that there was still nothing to worry about. She sat back down and waited. It was just a matter of time, now.

The others were back within two hours, but not traveling the way she thought they would. Needless to say it was quite mind boggling when a double-decker bus that had been ripped to shreds rolled into the driveway. She watched it make it up to the mansion. "What the…" She went into the living room. "Lia, get your brother, come with me."

Alia hurried to do as she was told, and followed her mother outside. "What happened? A double decker bus?" She coughed, not expecting her sister to come out of nowhere and practically tackle her into a hug. The surprise faded into relief an excitement in a flash. "Evy! Thank God!" She sighed, then returned the hug wholeheartedly. Her relief didn't last long, however, because she recognized the sound of Evelyn crying, then realized the other woman's shoulders were shaking. "What happened…?" She repeated, gently this time around.

"They… our boys… they got me back… but the…. People who broke in… they took… they took Alex. They took my little boy, Tess." Evy whimpered through sobs.

Tess' heart dropped, and she looked at Rick and Jonathan, who looked equally devastated. Ardeth looked upset as well, but as usual, he seemed to have this air about him that he knew something that would help their situation. Tess still couldn't believe her sister's words. Sure enough, when she did the headcount, her nephew was missing. "No…"

"We're gonna get him back, too. I won't rest 'til I get him back. Tess, help me out with Woody's old gun crate."

"You still have that thing?" Tess asked.

"Mm hm." Rick nodded. "And we're gonna need every damn thing in the box, if I have anything to say about it."

"Right…" Tess sighed, then started to turn, when she noticed a gash on Ardeth's chest. "What- are you- who did that? The guy you fought here earlier?"

Alia looked where her mother was looking, and gasped. "Daddy, you're hurt?"

Ardeth picked up the girl with his uninjured arm, trying not to show so much discomfort. "I'm fine, Alia." He replied, then looked at Tess. "No. Loch-Nah shot at us, nothing more. This was from one of Imhotep's warrior's-"

"IMHOTEP?" Tess demanded, taking Alia from him and setting her down. She nudged the girl to Jonathan.

Jonathan knelt down, turned his niece so her back was against his chest, and he put his arms around her, nuzzling her hair. He had lost his nephew, there was no way he was letting his niece out of sight.

Tess shook her head. "Alright, look, I know this isn't the best time, but one of you talk… now."

Rick motioned Ardeth to follow them as he grabbed her wrist and started dragging her inside. "On the way. Your to-do list- get Ardie patched up, help me with the case, and pack a bag for Cairo, because we're headed back where this whole thing started." Rick replied.

"Wait, if _goddamn Imhotep_ is here in _London_, then why are we going back to Egypt?"

"Because somethin' tells me he won't be staying here long. He'll wanna go back home, like last time." Rick replied. "Like I said, I wanna get my son back, and bury this guy again. There's only one solution for that in my book, Tessie." Rick replied, practically kicking open the backdoor of the house as he did so. He led the pair up the stairs, then pointed towards the bathroom for them before heading to the closet. Tess sat Ardeth down on the edge of the tub, doing a double-take on the shattered window. "This place went to Hell, huh?"

"To say the least." Ardeth agreed, then when he saw her get the bandages out of one of the cabinets, he moved the cut material aside. "My first bus ride and first experience with being patched up the Western way. I have a feeling this is going to be a time of many firsts." He mused.

"Well, as far as the bandages go, there's no way you could avoid them."

Ardeth nodded. "Has Henderson forgiven Amir for trying to patch him up our way yet?"

"Nope," Tess replied without a second thought.

Ardeth sighed. "Your friend needs to learn to be more open to new things."

"New things… Ardeth, Amir drugged him because he said 'no' to getting his foot swen up with leather thread when he cut it on glass, and tried to do it when he was unconscious. I think Chase has the right to hate the guy a little more."

"He kicked Amir in the face..."

"Amir had a giant needle about an inch away from his foot, and Chase is a cowboy. He doesn't handle surprise or anger well."

Ardeth shrugged in agreement, then watched her as she cleaned, then bandaged the wound.

After a couple of minutes, Rick banged on the door. "Hey you two. So help you if you're getting cozy in my bathroom when my kid was kidnapped by the guys who are with Imhotep."

Tess yanked open the door. "We just finished getting him patched up, Rick. We're not dawdling. We know how serious it is." She shot back.

"Uh huh." Rick rolled his eyes, then turned and started to walk. "Oh, and Tessie, you may wanna wear something low cut for the second leg of the trip once we get to Cairo."

"What? Why?"

"Because like I told the others, we're gonna need to get from place to place pretty fast." Rick called.

Tess frowned. "Meaning?"

"We need a magic carpet."

"WHAT? NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! NOT HIM!"


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Short chapter, just to give you guys something so the update wait didn't happen again. I also have a poll for this up on my profile, too. For those of you who have kept up with this and the versions before it, you know I'm indecisive, so why the Hell not keep that up? Read the question, vote, and make me happy. Oh, and of course tell me what you thought here, even if it's not much. Yay and thank you for breaking the hundred mark, by the way! Enjoy.**

* * *

"… And then I'm gonna drag you out of the river just to throw you in again, and I'll get you out a second time and tell Chase and his brother to use you for target practice, and-"

"Tessie, stop. Really, threatening me every other hour and not stopping even when you know we're here is kinda dumb." Rick muttered from the driver's seat. "I don't like it either, but we don't have a choice."

The trip had been smooth sailing up until that moment. Tess and Evy had asked one of Evy's neighbors, an elderly woman who adored the three children, to look after Alia and Les, at least for a few days. The woman thought nothing of it. Her only question was 'Where's Alex?;, to which Rick's reply was 'He wanted to spend the Summer with his Uncle Tom." The answer was good enough for the woman, and the group was able to be on their way. They made it to Cairo, where Ardeth left him to return to Hamunaptra to check in with his men. and now, there they were, stalling in front of the door to Magic Carpet Airways.

"… Can I stay in the car, then?" Tess asked.

"Thought that was my job." Jonathan cut in.

"Shut up, Jon. You don't know this guy."

"Right, and… how do you both know him, again?"

"Shut up, Jon." Tess repeated. This time, Rick joined her in the comment. "You go first, then." Tess looked at Rick.

Evy looked around. "Um, I'm with Jonathan, here. This doesn't seem like a place that would end very helpful."

"It'll be fine. He's a professional." Rick replied.

"Tess doesn't seem to agree." Evy pointed out.

Rick opened his mouth to reply when the doors to the building swung open. A thin, lanky black man with a patch over his left eye emerged. Rick beamed. "IZZY!"

The man, Izzy, let out a yell of alarm, then ran right back inside.

Rick's smile faded. "Hey!"

"He definitely remembers you." Evy nodded.

"He's a little shy. Isn't that right, Tessie? Go over there. Talk to him." Rick instructed.

"No!" Tess argued. "If anyone who's gonna be shy during this part of the trip, it's me."

Rick rolled his eyes, then glanced back at Jonathan, who was getting out of the car. He pointed at the trunk. "Hey, Jonathan. Get our bags."

"I'll do it!" Tess' hand shot up.

"No," Rick scolded, then when Jonathan went to protest getting them, Rick shoved him back towards the car lightly. "I'll deal with the flight details." He drew his pistol and shot the lock.

Evy sighed. "You're not a very subtle man, are you."

"We don't have time for subtle." Rick shrugged. He sidled between Evy and the business' sign, then grabbed Tess' forearm. "You lose. Let's go." He dragged her along behind him, then went over to the doors and kicking them open. "Oh Izzy, look who I brought!"

"… Did they date back in the day or something?" Jonathan asked Evy, who shrugged. The question earned him a death glare from Tess. "What? I'm just curious."

Rick growled when Tess tried to attack him, and pulled her closer, all the while following Izzy. The other man was still running. "Izzy, come here!" He tugged on Tess' arm hard when she mumbled for him not to.

Izzy finally stopped in order to get paperwork from under a sleeping man's head. "Whatever it is, whatever you need, I don't care. Forget it, O'Connell. Anytime I help you, I get shot! Last time I got shot in the ass! I'm in mourning for my ass! Remember that bank job in Marrakesh?"

Tess froze and turned her glare over to Izzy. If he continued…

"Bank job?" Evy asked.

"Not how it sounds." Rick replied.

"Uh, it's exactly how it sounds. I'm flying high, hiding in the sun, the white boy and girl here flag me down so I fly in low for the pickup. The next thing you know, I get shot! I'm lying in the middle of the road with my spleen hanging out and I see him waltzing up with some belly dancer girl- imagine my surprise when I found out it was her!" Izzy jabbed his finger in Tess' direction.

"…What?" Evy raised her eyebrows, not sure whether to look at her husband or sister.

Rick shrugged innocently, and Tess crossed her arms over her chest and continued to come up with ways to kill the man who was still digging around in his desk.

"Izzy, I think you and I should talk." Evy suggested.

"As long as I don't get shot." Izzy replied. "Now, I know Rick, I know Tess, the only one of them I can tolerate, now who the Hell are you two? Pardon my French, but if you're with him, I'm sure you've heard worse." Izzy asked.

"My brother and sister, who's also his wife and brother in law. Now, shut the Hell up and listen to our proposition." Tess replied.

Izzy arched his visible eyebrow at her. "You mean both of you have some random connections after all those years? And wife? You actually convinced someone to marry you? How drunk was she?"

"Small world, and not drunk at all. Tess is married too, so you're outta luck." Rick replied. "Now, you get paid this time." Rick tossed the man a wad of cash.

Izzy stared at the money for a while. "O'Connell, look around. What do I need money for? What the Hel am I gonna spend it on?" He contradicted himself as he shoved it in his pocket. He turned to Tess. "And you're married? Really?"

"Mm hm. Mother of two, too." Tess nodded.

Rick moved in front of her, taking out the scepter that Jonathan had before. "Look, Iz. My little boy's out there. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get him back." He waved the scepter with each word, and caught Izzy gawking at it. He moved it around and watched Izzy's eye follow it for a moment, then nodded.

Izzy finally spoke. "If you give me that gold stick there, you can shave my head, wax my legs and use me as a surfboard."

Rick tossed it to him. "… Didn't we do that in TripolI?"

Izzy looked at him and smiled nervously.

Rick sighed. "Oh, by the way… how'd you lose your eye…?" He pointed to the eye patch.

Izzy paused, then laughed. "Oh. I didn't." He lifted up the patch, showing his covered eye. "I just thought it made me look more dashing."

Rick laughed sarcastically before yanking off the patch and tossing it on the ground. "Get going."

Izzy frowned before motioning for them to go towards the back of the area.

* * *

The group did as instructed, giving Izzy details on where they were headed as they did so. Rick and Tess leading the way. Halfway there, Rick nudged Tess. "Told you it wasn't gonna be bad."

"Yeah, well, that's because he's still in shock from realizing, hey, it's Rick and Tess." Tess replied. She stopped in her tracks when she saw a group of men on horses riding up the hill they were a few feet from. "What the Hell…?" She sighed when she recognized two of the riders, then Ardeth coming up behind them. "Oh, we're good. No trouble." She grinned when she heard Izzy mutter that he was going to get shot. "Only if you pull your usual stuff with me, Iz."

Izzy pulled a face, wondering what she meant, then frowned, seeing Ardeth walk next to Tess before putting an arm around her shoulders. The pilot muttered something to himself, then looked down.

Ardeth motioned at the riders. "These are the commanders of the twelve tribes of the medjai." He explained. "Horus!" He raised his free arm.

A falcon that was perched on one of the other rider's arms flew over and landed on Ardeth's.

"Oh, that's the little guy Lia was talking about. Pet bird!" Jonathan grinned.

Ardeth smiled and nodded. "Her best friend, she calls him." He stroked the bird's feathers. "He will let the commanders know of our progress so they may follow." When his people nodded, Ardeth turned around and told his men something. They raised their arms, then rode off. "If the Army of Anubis arises, they will do whatever they can to stop it." Ardeth added.

The group started walking towards the back ledge again. After a few moments of silence, Evy spoke up. "Rick, Tess, are you sure Izzy's reliable?"

"Oh, yeah. He's reliable… ish." Rick nodded.

"Ain't that the truth." Tess nodded.

They turned the corner, then weren't at all sure what to think when they saw a blimp hovering a few feet from them.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Izzy beamed.

"…It's a balloon!" Rick object.

"Ugh. It's a _dirigible_!" Izzy corrected.

"Where's your airplane?" Rick demanded.

"Airplane's are a thing of the past!" Izzy dimissed the comment.

"You know what? You're right. You're gonna get shot!" Rick snapped. He drew his pistol.

Izzy tossed his hands up. "Whoa whoa whoa, she's faster than she looks! And she's quiet- real quiet. Perfect for sneaking up on people. That is, unless you want to go with your approach, running in face first, guns blazing and getting your friend shot in the ass!"

Rick looked at Evy, shrugged, then put his gun away.

Ardeth looked between the men, then looked at Tess. "I take I have missed quite a lot since we parted?"

"Well, not much, but… with these two, something is always nothing." She replied. "So… off we go?"

Izzy looked at her, grinned, and nodded. "Off we go."


	17. Who Are You?

**A/N: Here's a quick chapter as a Christmas present to those of you who celebrate it, and just so there's not a big gap for those of you who don't. Another chap should be up soon after the holidays. Enjoy. **

* * *

Tess sighed and leaned over the side of the dirigible, taking in the view to be had. It was just about the only thing that could calm her down. She glanced to the other side of the dirigible, where her sister was doing the same thing. Her heart went out to her. She couldn't imagine how she would be feeling if she had lost Alia or Les that way. She turned back around and smiled when she saw Ardeth walking over. She leaned into him when he put his hands on her waist. "Hi…" She sighed.

Ardeth nodded a greeting. "Since when was Les that tall?" Ardeth asked. "Last time I was here he barely passed my hip."

Tess laughed. "Who knows. It's like he grows a bit every day- so does Alia. I mean, sure, that's scientific fact, but… it gets crazy sometimes." She concluded.

Ardeth sighed. "I miss you three every time I have to go back to Hamunaptra."

"Well, we all miss you just as much." Tess replied. She went to smile, then flinched. "God. Here we are, talking about our kids who are safe at home, and twenty feet away, they're dealing with Alex being kidnapped…" She rubbed her face.

"We're going to find him, Teresa." Ardeth assured her. "I hope you're aware that you're entitled to be positive about anything when this is happening. It is how people get by. Rick and Evy would understand, I'm sure."

She sighed again. She hated when he used her full name, and she hated him trying to look at the whole situation with a positive outlook. Imhotep was back, and Alex had been kidnapped. There was no positive in that scenario, despite the possibility of getting him back. "How, Ardeth? _How?_ Everything is crashing down. I don't even care about Imhotep coming back. I'm more focused on the fact that Alex has been taken by the people working for him, and my sister and brother-in-law are devastated. Hell, I'm devastated. Alex is Alia's best friend, too. If something happens to him… how do we tell her? She'll be almost as destroyed as they would be." She glanced at her family across the way again, then looked back at her husband. "Ardeth, you know the man who took him, and he nearly took me down for the count when he was at the house before… be honest with me. Go ahead, lie to Evy, lie to Rick, just not me. What are the chances we'll really get Alex back?"

Ardeth hesitated, then moved his chin to the top of her head. "Honestly? I would have to say very little. However, with Rick here…" He trailed off. "Chances are far better." He hesitated. "Don't tell him I said that."

Tess smiled despite herself. "I might cheer him up a bit, though."

"What might cheer me up?"

The pair turned around to see Rick looking at them with an eyebrow raised. "Rick! Uh, nothing… "

Rick gave her a 'yeah right' look. "Uh huh…" He looked at Ardeth. "So, Ardie, talk to me about what the Hell your issue with this was about, again?"

"I told you- that is the mark of a Med-jai. That means you are one of us, whether you like it or not."

"If a man does not embrace his past, he has no future.

Rick rolled his eyes. He crossed his arms and leaned against the side of the dirigible. "Even… if, I'm some sort of sacred Med-jai, what good does that do me now?"

"It is the missing piece of your heart. If you embrace it, if you accept it, you can do anything."

Rick sighed and looked away. "Sounds great. Listen, what do we expect from our old friend Imhotep?"

"His powers are returning-"

"To what they were before, or are we gonna have to learn new ways to bring him down?" Tess asked.

"More powerful. By the time he reaches Ahm Shere, even the Scorpion King won't be able to stop him." Ardeth replied.

Rick flinched, and Tess added, "Then our chances with the Scorpion King?"

"Equal to us dealing with Imhotep the first time," Ardeth replied.

Rick tossed his hands up. "Fantastic…" He sighed sarcastically.

A moment later, the three of them bolted upright when they heard Evy scream. They all looked over just in time to see Evy start to fall over the side of the dirigible. "EVY!" Rick bolted over to the side with Tess and Ardeth at his heels. He practically launched himself over the side to catch her, grabbing the railing at the perfect moment. He caught Evy by the heel, and the onlookers breathed a heavy sigh of relief before scrambling to help them up and back into the vehicle. They were all surprised when they found Evy was conscious, but completely unresponsive when Rick shook her.

"Shock?" Tess wondered aloud.

Evy snapped out of her trance with a cry, and Rick immediately pulled her into a hug. She held onto his arms, then looked around at all the concerned faces. "Did… any of you see that?"

Tess frowned. "See what, Evy?"

Evy looked at her and frowned. "… That's what I thought." She cuddled further into Rick.

The others exchanged puzzled looks, but decided it was far from the time to ask.

* * *

To their surprise, it only took a few minutes for Evy to admit what had gone on. She had a vision of the past, involving Imhotep and Anck- Su- Namun. It was far from the first, too, as Rick explained. Tess made a mental note of connecting those visions to the same voice that she had heard in her head several times during, as well as since, their adventure at Hamunaptra. It had been most prominent while training with the Med-jai afterwards, but had been relatively silent for a while, unlike Evy's visions coming to her. The thing that got to everyone the most was Evy insisting that the visions weren't just visions, but memories from her previous life.

"And that's the reason why we found the bracelet…?" Rick questioned.

"It all makes sense now!" Evy insisted.

"Evy, look, the voice in my head just proves I'm probably out of my mind somehow, I'll admit it, but... your past life? I know you love Egypt, but that's a little much."

"Then why does it feel so real?" Evy asked.

"Dreams usually do." Rick replied.

"No, she might be right." Ardeth insisted. "Rick, your connection to the Med-jai, and her visions- memories… you were destined to protect her."

Rick scoffed. "Right, she's a reincarnated princess and I'm a warrior for God. Where does Tess' voice fit in, if that's the case?"

Ardeth looked at Tess and ran his fingers through her hair before looking at Rick. "I do not know, but that is not all on your side- your son put on the bracelet and now knows the way to Ahm Shere. Three sides of the pyramid."

"Square," Rick corrected.

"But she has no connection yet. Focus on you and your family, and there is something to be found out." Ardeth replied. "This was all preordained thousands of years ago."

"And how does the story end?" Evy asked.

"Oh, only the journey is written, not the destination." Ardeth looked at Tess. "Perhaps that is where we will find your answer."

"Convienient," Rick scoffed.

"Like I said, how else do you expect Evy's visions? Your son that wears the bracelet? Your arm bears the mark. How else can I tell you there is more to this than meets the eye?"

"Coincidence," Rick deadpanned.

"My friend, there is a fine line between coincidence and fate." Ardeth replied.

The others just looked around once again, at a loss for words for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last few days.

* * *

By the morning, the group had managed to get to Karnak. The dirigible had barely been on the ground for a few seconds before Rick and Ardeth had already jumped over the side after they spotted a train, and, assuming that the people who had Alex were on it, headed into it. When Ardeth called that the people inside were gone, Evy crossed her arms over her chest and let out a whimper.

Both Jonathan and Evy reached over and gave the shoulder closest to them a reassuring squeeze. "We'll get him, Evy…" They both muttered.

Evy spared the pair of them a glance before getting out and heading for the ruins. Her siblings followed. Once they got into the main area, Evy pointed left and right. "Split up. I'll go there, Tess, you go left, Jonathan, right." They all went their designated directions.

Tess didn't have much to explore. The covered area of her search area ended quickly, and before she knew it, she was back outside, but could tell there were remnants of what used to be a ceiling around the area. She sighed and turned around. "Alex? Alex, are you here?" She called weakly. After a few seconds, she shook her head. She turned back around and headed back inside to report her lack of findings, then a wall with hieroglyphics and a few pictures caught her eye. She approached it and looked it over. One of the pictures depicted a battle. Several warriors on both end seemed to be down for the count. Tess looked to the right, towards what looked to be the more prepared people involved. There was a man in the front, leading what looked like a chariot of all things. Whoever had done the art- probably the people of Karnak, had painted him to look cruel, there was no doubt about it in her mind. His eyes were dark, which seemed odd against light skin and what was probably brown hair. . She didn't know what possessed her, but she reached up and touched his face. She frowned when that same voice that had just about walked her through her fight with Anck-Su-Namun earlier came into her head, but she couldn't make any of what he was saying out. She pulled back and looked at his face again. "Who are you…?" She muttered.

"RICK!"

Tess' head snapped in the direction of her sister's scream. "Evy?" The painting forgotten, she ran back into the building. She skidded to a halt when she spotted her sister grab something off of a statue. She went to Evy's side and frowned, realizing it was Alex's tie. She followed her sister's eyeline down when Evy handed off the tie to Rick when he and Ardeth joined them. A sandcastle, depicting what looked like Egyptian gods.

"Alex's tie… and he left us a little sandcastle." Evy replied. It's thetemple island of Philae. They've got to Philae."

So the group went on to Philae, and another castle was waiting for them there, as well as the next place.

* * *

**A/N: Merry Christmas, peeps! Now, put in a few reviews so I have those to look forward to as more gifts tomorrow. Oh, and there's a new poll for the sequel to this fic for those of you who've seen the Scorpion King. Go check it out on my page.**


	18. Waking Up

**A/N: Sorry for the wait. College has been royally kicking my ass as of late. I wanted to make sure I got this updated as soon as possible 'cause I hate making you guys wait most of all. I wasn't gonna do a big reveal in this chapter either, but I figured I had you guys wait enough. Anyways, the first set of stuff in Italics are a flashback, and the second's a dream sequence. Enjoy. **

* * *

_Tess screeched in alarm and tossed her arms over her head, ducking to avoid the 6-foot staff some of the Med-jai had her and Chase training with that day. Chase had accidentally whacked himself hard in the face with it about an hour prior, and his absence after two of the med-jai leading him away was starting to get to her. With him, at least they could laugh about errors and know that they were laughing together and not at each other. Now that she was alone, the moves she had been taught were more and more aggravating. Then there was the fact she was about ninety percent sure Ardeth, who was watching from a few feet away was laughing at her as she made the staff go flying for the fifteenth time that day. Once the man's smile faded, she glared at him. "I'm new to this, you know! Cut me some slack!" She objected._

_Ardeth tilted his head._

_Tess caught his meaning and sighed. "Take it easy on me, then. That better?" She countered. She went over to the staff, picked it up, and righted herself, then held the staff directly in front of her, going horizontally. "Now, remind me why I need to learn this? How many times is one of these things even going to be available if we get attacked?" She looked back at the spot he had been in, only to find it vacant. "Uh, Ardeth…?" She managed to contain her yelp when she felt hands on her waist, but that didn't stop the small, involuntary jump._

_"Easy, easy."_

_Tess sighed when she realized it was Ardeth, and when she tried to shake him off, he just held tighter. She rolled her eyes and relaxed into his touch._

_"Trust me. Just hold yourself still here, and relax." He instructed. "You're too tense. Loosen your left hand's grip on the staff, tighten it on your right, and push it forward with your left." Ardeth instructed, reaching over and tapping the designated hands. She did the move, and sure enough, she didn't go lurching forward with it like she had before._

_"Good. Now the second one. Bring the left back, and hold it with enough force that it'll snap back if you have it against you." Ardeth took her hand again, and pulled it back into the position he mentioned. "Got it?"_

_"Yeah, think so," Tess nodded. She followed through with the instruction again, and succeeded- a bit too much. She heard the staff hit something, and she realized it had swung wide enough to hit him and not her. He was trying damn hard not to show too much pain. She was grateful that he got hit on the hip and not… close below it. "Oh! Oh God, I'm sorry!"_

_Ardeth held out his hand, and then released his lip that he had settled for biting down on. "It's fine. That was good. Keep that up, and you'll be well on your way to being able to compete with us."_

_Tess gasped playfully, then used the staff to hit him in the shin lightly. "I can compete with you people just fine. It's just your style I have to get used to."_

_Ardeth arched an eyebrow._

_Tess smirked, but it dropped quickly when, about a moment later, Ardeth managed to take the staff from her and pull the same move she had on him, but he followed through with it, knocking her off her feet and back-first into the sound. She let out an indignant squawk._

_Ardeth smirked, then shrugged and offered one end of the staff to her. "I believe 'I told you so' would be the appropriate reply, here?"_

_Tess scoffed. "Yeah, it would be."_

_Ardeth moved the staff up and down. Tess got the hint and took hold of the end, and let him pull her up._

_He took hold of her arm. "I warn you, Ms. Carnahan. Your arrogance may be the death of you someday." He held one end of the staff out for her to take._

_Tess rolled her eyes, but took it and let him pull her up._

_Ardeth nodded. "You're well on your way, like I said. Now, that's enough for today. Go visit Mister Henderson. He's with Amal."_

_Tess nodded and headed towards the tents around the area, making sure she was well on her way before the man had opportunity to change his mind._

* * *

Tess sighed and stretched, turning away from the river view that the dirigible currently had. She had been trying to remember the voice that had found it's way into her head- any dialect, the timbre- anything that she could hold onto. Hell, if Evy and her were having these dreams, and now there was a theory about reincarnation, there could be the man who the voice belonged to walking around somewhere, couldn't there? Who could he be? The voice sounded… fond of her. Who… was he, then? Who was she, if she was dealing with the same thing Evy was? She had come across a pencil old paper shoved in the corner of the desk Izzy had set up in the back, and tried to sketch what she could remember of the painting. She didn't think the outcome gave it justice, but she would take what she could get, and hoped that the stranger would show up on paintings again.

"That's the Blue Nile down there." Rick chimed from his spot in the middle of the dirigible. "Must be outta Egypy by now."

"In ancient times, all this still belonged to the Upper Kingdom. The Oasis must be around here somewhere…" Evy replied. She looked over her shoulder. "Ardeth, Tess, we could use an extra set of eyes here."

"Mm hm!" Tess called, then headed over to the side where they were, settling between her sister and Ardeth. "You know, this would be really pretty if we weren't escaping a mummy Hell-bent on trying to kill us… you know, the second time around- as in the attempting to, I mean- and… the whole… Alex missing thing, I'm gonna stop talking now." She sighed.

"Hey, it's okay. It's not like we think you don't care about the kid and you're worried about your own hide over anyone else's." Rick nudged her shoulder with his own. "We'll find this place, and we'll find him." He looked at Evy. "It's gonna turn out okay. You got it?"

Evy nodded, then looked at the other couple. "Anything from your men, Ardeth?" She asked.

Ardeth shook his head. "Nothing. If Imhotep is around here, he isn't bothering starting trouble- not unless we are involved." He hesitated. "I take it is my turn to stop talking, then…"

Evy smiled weakly and touched his arm. "You don't worry about it, either. You're helping, even if it doesn't seem like it. And you're right, whether we like it or not- Imhotep's problem isn't with this place anymore- it's with us." Evy looked like she was about to continue, then stopped abruptly.

Ardeth turned and leaned back. "Like Rick said, we'll get your son back. He's a smart boy- he's proven that so far. I'm sure he will continue to do so." He replied.

Evy offered another weak smile, then turned to the left when she heard a distant sound- something along the lines of roaring. She looked at her other two companions, and when she saw they seemed to be searching for the source as well, she started walking towards Rick, who also looked alert. The other two followed. Jonathan joined the group a moment or two later. As the roaring grw luder, Rick drew his gun out of instinct.

A moment later, a wall of water came around the corner behind them, coming right at them at high speed.

"WE'RE IN TROUBLE!" Izzy called over the roar.

The others turned and gawked at the wall of water to behold that took up the entire chasm. It practically stood still for a moment before a face emerged- everyone in the group save for Izzy recognized it as the same one that had come from the sandstorm nearly nine years prior- it was hardly the sight to forget. Much like the sand-face had, the water-face sneered, and the face started to morph again. Ardeth barely had time to let Horace fly off his arm before Izzy made the dirigible speed up in the direction Horus flew as much as possible, and the water blasted towards them again after the face had roared at them. Izzy had the dirigible rise fast, and managed to get to a point in the water that, once it hit them, the water only managed to hit the dirible lightly, knocking everyone off their feet and getting them wet, but otherwise unharmed. They righted themselves, then looked around, making sure everyone was present.

Once they were satisfied they all were, Izzy got up from his spot behind the wheel. "… Is there a little something you forgot to mention?"

Rick, Evy, Tess and Ardeth all looked at him, wondering just where to start. The man deserved an explanation to say the least.

"Uh, people…!" Jonathan murmured from his spot behind them.

They all turned, then gawked at the sight to behold. After the cliffface stopped, the rest of the rock formations stopped a few hundred feet ahead, and then were taken over by various trees and water sources- an oasis.

"Ahm Shere…" Ardeth sighed.

Rick turned, grabbed Izzy's telescope, and looked through it. He promptly shut it and set it back down. "Great…"

The roaring from before started up again- as loud as it was when it had hit them. They all turned, knowing full well what to expect. Sure enough, the wall of water was back- face included.

"He's back!" Izzy screamed just as the face roared again. "Hang on!"

The others scrambled for something to hold onto, and they managed to succeed- only to hear the hum of them losing their engine- or, at least what they assumed was an engine.

"… Well, that's not good." Was the last thing any of them heard before the dirigible started its plummet back to the ground.

* * *

_Tess let out a low moan of pain. Everything hurt- her head, her back, her legs- her shoulder hurt the worst, though. She glanced to the right to see what the damage was, and couldn't hold back the alarmed yelp that came from her throat when she saw a slender piece of wood lodged into it. She started breathing heavily, then something came to mind- wait a second, is that an arrow? She looked at the wood again, and sure enough, noticed the rounded edges and the feathers on the end. She looked around. Where was everyone? Was Ardeth okay? Jon? Evy? Rick? She frowned when she took in surroundings. She wasn't in a wrecked dirigible- she wasn't in any jungle, she wasn't in a desert, she was pretty sure she wasn't dead- so where the Hell was she, and why the Hell was wherever she was currently in the form of what looked like an unfamiliar tent? The Hell was going on? She let out another yelp when sunlight streamed through one of the sheer red flaps as it opened._

_"Good, you're awake!"_

_That voice got Tess' attention. It was the one in her head from before- but how? She lifted her head weakly, taking in the sight of an older man walking to her side, but he didn't look like a man who would have that voice- the one watching her from the opening of the tent did, though. Brown hair, blue eyes- he looked like the painting. It was his clothes that had her mind realing, though. He was wearing armour, with several red adornments around them. Since when had any soldiers worn armor like that? Was this a vision like Evy's? Was this some twisted way of moving… on? What was going on? She went to sit up, but within a couple of seconds, the brown-haired man was beside her, pushing her back down._

_"Sh, it's alright. You're home."_

_"Where is home?" Tess growled out._

_The man smiled and let out an unsure laugh. "You must've hit your head when you fell. I apologize for that. It was Ulrich again- thought you and Sorne were spies. He'll be dealt with later."_

_"Dealt with- what- where's Ardeth? Evy? Jon?" She shouted the last two, only to have the man hold her back down again. Pain ripped through her shoulder and she settled down._

_The man looked concerned for her. "What're you- I've never heard of any of the names you've mentioned. I didn't see that you landed that hard." He reached for her hand, and then his frown deepened when she pulled back. "What has gotten into you?" He demanded._

_Tess noted he was getting angry, fast. But who was he? Was she going to get any answers whatsoever?" "I don't know… just… I fell, and- where are my people?"_

_The man blinked at her. "Well, Sorne is on his way here now. He was relatively unharmed from the fall, and-"_

_"Hold on. Just hold on a goddamn minute! Who the Hell is Sorne, and where am I?" Tess demanded._

_The man's frown continued to deepen, then looked at the other man who had come in. "Best you get your job done, and then let her rest. She's obviously not well at all-"_

_Tess let out a short, sarcastic laugh. "Of course I'm not well, I just fell out of a damn wannabe-plane and now I'm here, with you people and your armor and this tent and I'm utterly lost, and-" The rest of her protest was cut off by her own loud, high, pained scream as the older man literally yanked the arrow from her shoulder. "That is NOT how this works anymore! Just what's… Oooh." Her protest died again when she felt lightheaded. Was it bloodloss, at this rate?_

_The man chuckled, but stopped when a third man entered the tent. "Lord Memnon, 's men are advancing."_

_"Then have . I'll be there shortly." The man replied._

_Memnon. Tess tried to drill the name into her head. Memnon. Why did that sound familiar?_

_The man- Memnon, looked back at her. The irration and anger he seemed to hold before was gone. "I will return soon, my love. I've left you in capable hands. Relax, now."_

_Tess' head was spinning again. Did she just hear 'my love' right? What was going on? This was too much. The spinning continued on and on, and before she knew it, she had blacked out._

* * *

She came to, and the pain was still there in her shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked up at the trees and fabric folded over something above her. Now that was what she had expected the first time she woke up. She let out a yelp again when she felt something come out of her shoulder again. She looked at the spot again, only to see Jonathan tossing aside a small bit of shattered wood no bigger than his fist aside. She managed to see blood on the tip. At least it wasn't as deep as the arrow.

"Tessie? Tessie, you alright?" Jonathan dropped next to her again.

"Yeah, I'm good. Shoulder still hurts, though. Is everyone okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine. Few scratches is all." Jonathan replied, helping her up and dusting her off.

Tess spotted Ardeth shoving rubble off of him and went over to help. She registered Izzy arguing with Rick, and looked at her husband. "What's he going on about now?"

"You expect me to know?" Ardeth countered.

"Tess! Tess, thank God!" Evy called from her spot a few feet away. "Good, you're alright. Look, can you two help me get the supplies out? Rick wants to get going as soon as we can. Just get those bags first."

The couple nodded and started to pass along whatever object Evy had pointed to, as Jonathan backed up nonchalantly to avoid heavy lifting as usual.

The group managed to get all the supplies they needed for the continued hike, and then went on their way towards the pyramid, leaving Izzy to make as many repairs as possible. They had trekked for a few minutes in silence until a gunshot rang out. They all ducked out of instinct, and then the group looked to Ardeth, remembering that he had sent Horus away with a message before they had started. They all knew the bird must've been shot by one of Imhotep's followers. Sure enough, Ardeth ran back a few feet, called for the falcon, then let his head droop. He looked back at his companions. "I must go."

"Wait!" Rick objected, walking over to him.

"I must let the commanders know where we are. If the army of Anubis arises/" Ardeth began.

"You can't just leave. I need you to help me find my son."

Ardeth hesitated, looking back at his other companions. Now he was outnumbered- the only one who didn't share blood with the boy. It didn't matter. He cared for everyone in front of him, and even if he had only met Alex about three times, he still cared for the boy by default. He nodded. "But first I will help you."

Rick nodded and gave him a pat on the shoulder, then slung an arm over the man, bringing him to the front of the group. They continued on, well into the night. They stopped abruptly on a cliff face when they spotted torches down below. Rick opened his gun bag and handed various weapons to the party. As they loaded the guns, Rick looked around. "You hear that?" He asked Ardeth.

"What?" Ardeth asked.

"Nothin'. Absolutely nothing." Rick replied, narrowing his eyes and continuing to look back and forth.

"I say,Chaps, have a look at this. Shrunken heads. I would love to know do that." Jonathan mused from his spot behind them as he looked at what adorned one of the walls. He looked at his friends, and seeing that they were all looking at him like he was insane, he shrugged. "Just curious…" He set down his torch and picked up his own gun.

Ardeth slung his gun over his shoulder and stood up.

Tess frowned, knowing that look. "Play nice…"

Ardeth shot her a playful glare, then walked over to Jonathan, nodding at the man's gun. "You any good with that?"

"Three times fox and hound's grand champion, I'll have you know." He replied, then nodded at the sword at Ardeth's side. "You any good with that?" He countered, only to yelp when Ardeth drew the sword in order to put it to the Englishman's throat.

Tess gawked at them. "That is not playing nice! Come on! We have other things to worry about!" She objected.

Ardeth chuckled, then looked back at Jonathan and shrugged. "You'll know soon enough. The only way to kill an Anubis warrior is to cut off his head." He mused.

"Boys…" Tess growled.

Jonathan pointed at her. "Dually noted, old fellow, but how about we listen to my sister, eh?"

Ardeth chuckled again, then let his arm drop. He put the sword back. "Are you ready, Rick?"

"As I'll ever be." Rick replied, moving over to Evy.

Ardeth made his way back to Tess and kissed her forehead. "Be careful. You're a good fighter- a better shot, but there are men down there who are better than you."

"I know. You be careful too." Tess instructed. She leaned up to kiss him again, then stood next to Evy as Rick and Ardeth headed down the slope further on. She frowned when she saw Evy swallow hard. "They're gonna be fine, Ev. Rick may come across as way to arrogant with his skills sometimes, but he knows what he's doing in this case… he has Ardeth to back him up, too…"

Evy sighed. "I know. Still scares me to death, though." She brought up her gun. "Hoping for the best now. That's our family down there. Let's not disappoint them."

"Not a chance," Her siblings replied. They all pointed their guns in the direction Rick and Ardeth had instructed, and it was a waiting game once again.


	19. The New Addition

**A/N: So sorry for the wait. It's the usual excuse. Life added a lot to the checklist, and I had to take care of it. For those couple of you who thought I had stopped updating period- I can tell you now that isn't the case. While I think at least the beginning of this fic needs a lot of work, it's still probably overall my favorite that I've worked on and it's not at all done, so I won't just stop. It just takes me a while to update for the reason listed above, and you can see that from the publishing date. I'm sure other readers would vouch for me, because they're/you're the most patient people ever and I love you for it. Moving on.**

* * *

It had been a relatively quiet few moments on the ledge, and the Carnahans were tense to say the least. When Jonathan finally couldn't take it anymore, he turned to Tess. "Look, I like Rick and trust him and knows he can handle his own- and the same goes for your husband, but how much of a chance do you think they have down there against an army?"

Tess turned to glare at him, and Evy, who, unlike he had planned, heard it and turned her own glare on him. His eyes snapped back to the ground below them. "Sorry… It's just…"

"We know, but all we can do right now is hope for the best and help them out when the bullets start flying." Tess replied.

Evy glanced at her, squared her shoulders, and looked down again. After a few moments, she caught movement between the trees. "What on Earth is that?"

"Trouble," Jonathan barely managed to get out before there was screaming from down below, and the rustling turned into all out swaying, and glimpses of red were seen flashing between the trees.

"The Hell…?" Tess muttered, raising her own gun more, then spotted the flashes from a machine gun- the Thompson. "To the right of the smallest tree! They're there!" She called, but Jonathan and Evy were already set, trying to clear the path for their own people after they spotted them. Gunfire went off, and then they watched as the battle went into a clearer area. The siblings just gawked when they saw Lock-Nah's men being chased by tiny, greyish humanoid things, who proceeded to murder the soldiers.

"Oh, well that's comforting." Jonathan sighed, then glanced at Tess when she let out a yelp and looked utterly horrified. "What?"

"Jon!" Tess barked, nodding in the direction his gun was pointing.

Jonathan looked back and saw what she was panicking about. Ardeth was taking down someone who looked like it could've been Lock-Nah, but another soldier was on his way over to ambush him. He set up the shot, and just as Lock-Nah fell, he shot at the other one.

Tess snapped out of her panicked daze when the shot went off, and let out a relieved bark of laughter when the soldier fell, and Ardeth, who was frozen as well, turned to them and offered a quick grateful nod before running back into the fight.

"Love you," Tess told Jonathan, turning back to her own part of the ground they had pretty much self-assigned to clear out until Rick found Alex. Finding it empty for the most part, she put her gun down.

"Love you more," Jonathan replied, then looked as Evy was already on her way back down to meet the men. He and Tess tore after her.

A couple of minutes later, they were all relieved to see Rick, Ardeth and Alex running towards them. Tess grinned and launched herself at Ardeth, and he gladly caught her, pulling her closer. She kissed him hard. "I almost lost you," She mused. "Don't do that to me again."

"Well, now you can say we're even on that one, can't we?" Ardeth countered.

"… It was Chase's fault." Tess replied, then saw him suddenly go from looking relieved to uneasy. "Your men. Go, we're fine here."

"Are you sure?"

Rick walked over to them. "Yes, she's right. But thank you. Couldn't have done it without you. Now go do your thing."

Ardeth sighed, offered his own "Thank you", and then darted off in the opposite direction.

Tess sighed, then turned to Alex, opening her arms. "Nephew Allie!"

"Aunt Tessie!" Alex replied, darting into them and giving her a hug. She released him when Jonathan asked about the creatures who had essentially thrown fuel on the fire with the fight. "Creepy little Pygmy Things" seemed quite accurate, to her surprise.

"Oh, just the local natives. Nothin' to worry about."

"You sure?"

"Nothin'. Absolutely nothin'." Rick waved his hand.

Alex shoved his way between the adults. "Come on, Mum! Come on, Dad! We have to get to the pyramid! I have to get the bracelet off _now_!" He insisted.

"Oh, leave it on, Alex! Looks good on you."

"No, you guys, you don't understand! He told me the bracelet would _kill _me if I don't get to the pyramid before the sun hits it- _today_!"

Everyone froze and stared at him, when Evy voiced all their thoughs, mumbling an 'oh my god.'

They all heard more noises that sounded like the pigmies behind them, and sure enough, the trees revealed they were headed their way. Tess turned to Rick and practically yanked the rifle off of his shoulder. Extra weight wouldn't do him good soon, apparently. "Go. Go, go, go, go, go!"

Rick nodded, grabbed Alex by the collar and started pulling him along as he ran at the pyramid, and the group followed. Halfway there, Evy called out, "Where's Jonathan?" and she and Tess almost stopped, for fear of what could've happened to him. They turned sharply, but upon seeing the pygmies close behind, thought better of it and turned back. They crossed a log, and just as Rick lit up a stick of dynamite, Jonathan came charging out of the trees. "Wait for me!"

"Hurry up!" Evy returned.

Jonathan got down, then spotted the dynamite. "What's that for?"

"Eh, just a little somethin' in case of emergency." Rick dismissed before tossing it the length of the log, where one of the pygmies caught it- and proceeded to fight over it with two more. The log went up in the explosion, and the group stared at the explosion for a while.

Evy sighed and looked away, only to spot the sun rising. "Rick…"

Rick didn't take long to figure out what was wrong. In a heartbeat, he was pulling Alex along towards the pyramid once again. Soon enough, he was out of sight, and the siblings were left hoping that all wouldn't be lose when they reached it themselves. When they did, they didn't spot a trace of Alex or Rick. "They made it, oh, thank God." Evy breathed.

Jonathan, who had Tess' arms tight around her, having thought she almost lost two people in her family within minutes of each other, sighed himself and nodded. "Yeah, great, fabulous." Tess released him and the pair turned sharply at a metallic sound- only to see the woman from the museum stab Evy with a sword, to which both siblings were about to scream, had Imhotep not come out of nowhere and sent them flying back with a wave of his hand. Once that was done, neither the priest nor the woman broke their stride to go into the pyramid.

Rick screamed 'No!' from somewhere inside the pyramid, and within seconds, he was running into view with Alex close behind him. When Rick called for Tess and Jonathan, the pair untangled their limbs and practically bolted for them.

"Take him, take him," Rick insisted, pointing from them to Jonathan as they arrived.

Both Carnahans seemed just about numb, but did their job, just watching as their sister died and Rick had a breakdown over her. Tess' heart sunk- she had almost lost two of her loved ones, and now she was, in fact, going to lose this one.

Evy reached up to touch Rick's face, murmured, "take care of Alex," and slowly, her eyes closed and her head lolled to the side.

Tess let out a whimper where the sound died in her throat, and she leaned down to get a better hold of Alex when the boy's shoulders sunk as far as they could go, Jonathan reached for her shoulder and squeezed it, and she could only muster holding his arm and returning the squeeze.

After a few moments, Rick stood up. He looked at the ones around him, and then turned and walked towards the pyramid without a word.

"Rick!" Tess scrambled up and hurried after him. "I'm coming with you!"

"No you're not. Stay here. I'm not losing you, too." Rick replied, but there was a detachment in the way she said it.

Tess understood why, of course- Hell, she was still in disbelief her little sister had just gotten murdered, but that gave her reason as well. "The Hell I'm not, Rick! She was your wife but she was our sister!" She jabbed a finger at Jonathan, and her brother looked up and nodded. "Look, you're out for vengeance now. Don't bother denying it because I know when you're on one of your vengeance kicks. When you went after the guys who killed Smitt and came back half dead, that was one of them. I thought I lost two people I love today, and I did lose one- the fourth most important to me next to my husband and my kids, so now it's my turn to say I'm. Not. Losing. You." She let out a small sob, not at all expecting it to happen.

Rick frowned at her, but when she stood her ground, frown firmly on her face and determination in her eyes, he nodded. "Fine. But keep up." He looked at Jonathan. "Look after Alex."

Jonathan nodded once again, and pulled Alex closer to him. Alex half-heartedly held onto him tighter. The pair went inside, but right when Tess crossed the threshold, a voice came into her head- the same one that had coached her in the fight- the same one who she had dreamed about when she had gotten hurt.

_Turn back now, Teresa._

Tess tried not to scoff._ Of all times to have that come back._

_I am needed this time around. _

Tess stopped in her tracks and arched an eyebrow. How was he talking back, now?

_Because your- our situation is far more dire this time around_.

_Since when do you talk back?_ Tess swallowed hard, hurrying to keep up with Rick.

_Since you're leading us to our deaths. _He deadpanned.

_Last I checked it's just me in the flesh and you're some weird hallucination thing_. Tess countered. It was then that she realized she was in fact, arguing with herself. She had gone insane, and it took her sister's death to do so.

_No. A part of me was always with you- that was your doing. Well, the woman you used to be's doing, anyway._

_Why should I believe that? _

_Because I loved you, once- many years ago-and you loved me. When you found out that I was to meet the evil you're going to see in battle and sensed my death, part of your soul died, and you replaced it with part of my own. I've always been here with you. I've just been the silent observer unless I'm truly needed. _

_That just sounds like some horrible, romantic mumbo- jumbo. _Tess countered. Rick finally looked back at her, and she spared him a glance to try and make things look normal. She tried not to yelp when suddenly, her feet stopped working mid-stride, and she stood still. She tried to walk. No luck. _What did you do to me? _

_Saving you from this fate- from our fate those ages ago. Teresa, this evil is worse than the one that just murdered your sister. You will not survive this if you know nothing of it. _

Tess flinched. Rick was already completely out of sigh. Why do you suddenly care? You just gave me a few tips and shut up. I can't not do something. You just said the facts- my sister was murdered by the guy who wants your… evil thing." She replied, then squinted when suddenly, several light sources lit up, and then an odd force hit her square in the chest, sent her stumbling backwards. _Alright, you wanna talk in that voice of yours and explain shit? What the Hell was that?!_

The voice was silent, and then Tess was worried when it came back- and he sounded worried- scared, even, as opposed to arrogant.

_The Scorpion King has been released. It may be too late for you and Richard. _He trailed off. Yeah, quite scared._  
_

_Oh, thank you for that vote of confidence. _Tess rolled her eyes.

_There's the fire you've had over the ages. Good. Fine, we'll do this your way, but being that your companion is gone, let me lead your way to where your priest and the King are._

Tess made a mental checklist of how many things could go wrong, but sighed and agreed. It was for her sister, after all. _Then lead on._

The voice did, giving her rough directions, until she- well, they came to a huge staircase with a mosaic of a giant scorpion at its base. She descended it, and when she put one foot down onto the mosaic, the voice murmured _'and I'm sorry for this.'_

Before Tess could even object to anything, an odd, pinkish yellow glow came out of nowhere and hit her, knocking her to her knees. Everything hurt, and her world spun. She clamped her eyes shut, and when they opened, she wasn't the one who had opened them. She rose to her feet, once again, not of her accord. _What did you do to me? WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!_ She tried to scream, not caring about appearances at that rate, but it still just came as a thought.

"Doing what needs to be done to help protect you, Teresa. You can trust me. I won't harm you."

Tess swallowed hard, even if she really didn't swallow herself. She had spoken that one. It was her voice but his timbre and accent was still there. She might have even laughed at the ridiculousness of it all, as well as being nervous about it. _So… what exactly did you do?_

"Switched our places, you could say. Now your body is mine and my spot in your mind is yours."

Tess hesitated. She was still coming to terms with the new twist in this situation. _Who are you? Who are you really? I've seen you- not a good glimpse, but I have and I've heard you, but really… I know nothing. And… and… who was I?_

"I am King Memnon, High King of many of these lands, murdered by the Scorpion King, and you, Teresa, are one of the reincarnations of my wife."

Had Tess been in control of her motor functions, she might have fallen over. Yeah, there was no way this was going to end well.


	20. The Once and Present Kings

**A/N: Sorry for the wait. Here's a new chapter, the last of the Mummy Returns bit too, to make up for it. If it's still Christmas in your time zone and you celebrate it, hope you had/are having a merry one. The latter part goes for the ones who are reading this on the 26****th****.**

**Two last notes: Issue 1: You'll have to play with suspension of disbelief a bit towards the end of the chapter. Issue 2: I hope the whole Memnon/Tess thing here won't be confusing. He's literally locked into her body and has full control, so I mostly say that he did the action, or did something for her/say them. It's still just him in her body with her providing some thoughts. There's a lot of thought-argument- so each line change is a different thought. I think it's common sense, but I know people tend to get confused with it, so I hope that clears stuff up.**

**Anyways, enjoy.**

* * *

_So… … whoever I used to be was the willing wife of a tyrant king_? Tess still couldn't believe what was happening. Having what he would say come out of her own mouth in her voice was just the icing on the cake of her current lack of sanity. She thought that all of the hype could be- would be over once they killed Imhotep- again. But now, between this and the Scorpion King, she knew it would last for a long while.

"Quite willing, yes." Memnon replied, turning her and picking up two swords that lay on the ground. "Used to belong to Imhotep's followers, no doubt." The ground shook longer and harder than the first time, and Memnon crouched to keep his-their balance. "He's here. We need to move. Imhotep must have summoned him."

How do you know about Imhotep if you were about with the Scorpion King? Tess asked.

"I've told you- I've always been here. I've always played the silent observer." Memnon replied.

_Unless I was in danger in a fight. That was you, the first day the Med-jai attacked… _

"Yes," Memnon offered the simple reply, weighing the swords in her hands and giving them a few twirls. "Good. You still move like I remember."

_Then let's get moving and help Rick. He may not have much time, and by the sound of it, him being alone won't do. Keep the talking to a minimum, will you? Rick's already about to snap. Seeing or hearing something strange happen to me may break him._

Memnon heaved a sigh, feeling her emotions change. "I'll see if it's possible. For what it's worth, I'm sorry about your sister."

_I thought tyrant kings weren't supposed to apologize._

"And I thought I implied heavily enough that you were one of my few exceptions. And enough with the 'tyrant king' business" Memnon replied. "We're here…" Memnon noted as they turned a corner that led to the largest chamber in the room. They reached the arch, just in time to see Rick stumble into view- with Imhotep following, throwing punches moments later. Imhotep kneed Rick, sending him sprawling back.

Memnon turned them in the direction of a statue beside the entryway. The golden pharaoh was holding two daggers. "I think these will be the more helpful of the two at the moment." He mused, hopping up to wrench them out of the grip. He weighed them in his hands and twirled one, waiting for the opportune moment. He saw Rick get the upper hand on the priest, kicking him back a few feet and took his chance. He tossed the knife hard. He would be lying if he didn't take a great deal of pleasure in seeing the blade embed itself halfway into the undead being's shoulder. It showed he could take damage, regardless of the fact that Imhotep took the dagger out of his shoulder and looked over at their position.

Even Rick did, and he looked confused. "Tessie?! Since when-"

"Richard, MOVE!" Memnon barked, and Rick heard the warning just in time to see Imhotep taking other swing at him- this time with an axe. He scrambled back and grabbed his own.

Go! Help him! Tess insisted.

Memnon tossed the remaining dagger aside, picked the swords back up and launched them onto the main floor. He rose to follow, just in time to get blocked by a wall of fire. "No!" He called, not bothering to try and silently communicate anymore. He wasn't going to let the Akkadian survive long, and if that meant using his- her, damn it- voice, then so be it. He looked for the source, seeing that Rick had just fallen into a vat of fire that had hit the oiled water around them and set it on fire almost instantly. "Damn!" He stumbled upright, only to go right back down because another earthquake shook the ground. "Now what?"

_You said he was coming the last time everything shook... _

"And he should've been here!"

_Then why… It doesn't matter, go to him!_

_Well, when you see an opening in the fire, feel free to let me know so I can get us out._

The argument was cut short when one of the doors across the room swung open, and unusually cold air billowed out from the doorway. Tess tried to narrow her eyes, and Memnon helped with the task, both of them trying to figure out what the hulking siloutte that showed up was. Tess felt her heart sink a moment later.

"It's him…" Memnon breathed, tightening his grip on the swords, and then widened her eyes as he took in the lower half. "But not as I remember."

Tess wanted to scream in alarm- half man, half scorpion. She wasn't expecting his title to be so literal.

_It wasn't literal at all, the last time we met…_ Memnon supplied.

The Scorpion King crawled into the light, revealing every part of the monster he was- or had become, anyway. He snapped his pincers in Rick and Imhotep's directions, almost pleased that he could show off.

_No chance in Hell of trying to reason with him, I take_? Tess asked.

_Not one_. Memnon agreed. He spotted a break in the fire that had been blocked from something falling over the crevice from when the door had opened. _You still want to go help your brother-in-law?_

_Of course I do, I- what is he doing? _

Memnon turned to look at Imhotep, who had knelt down and was shouting something at the Scorpion King.

_What's he saying? _

_Claiming he serves the Akkadian and claiming your friend is here to kill him. _

_Akkadian? _

_The name of the group that monster used to be part of. The group I swore to destroy. _

_Great. Just… go, please? I can't leave Rick alone._

Brave as I remember. So be it. But we'll go about this my way and stay on the sidelines- it's to his and our advantage, I assure you. Memnon made his way over the makeshift bridge and back onto one of the ledges.

Wait- Imhotep's trying to escape!

Memnon groaned and spotted the bald man, throwing them off of the ledge and running full speed at Imhotep. It was enough to knock him off balance.

When Imhotep recovered and looked at them, recognition flashed in his eyes.

_Good, he remembers me, _Tess noted.

_Then let's give him a reason not to forget._ Memnon brought his sword up and swung at Imhotep hard, forcing them and Imhotep back, right past Doctor Havev as he wandered into the room.

Havev gawked at the Scorpion King, then turned to leave immediately, only to be scooped up in one of the King's pincers and carried up to the ceiling. Havev called to Imhotep for help.

No one was surprised when Imhotep replied with, "Why?", only stopping to grimace when the Scorpion King tore the man to shreds.

The spell was broken when both Tess and Memnon realized the King had spotted them right after he returned to the ground.

_Run._

_That's the plan. _He tore down the ledge, trying to speed them up as he heard the rumbling and shattering of stonework behind them as they were followed.

"TESS!" Rick called from further in.

Tess wanted to flinch._ Call him Rick, please. Tell him to find the others. He'll be less worried and suspicious._

"Rick! I'm handling it! Go find Jon and Alex!" Memnon called, then dove to the side to avoid a piece of masonry that was breaking ahead of those around it. A dust cloud picked up as the rest fell, and Memnon took the lack of vision to their advantage, squeezing into a small, deep crack in the wall that the wreckage had caused and was blocked out by the rest. He stopped her breathing for a while, waiting and waiting until the Scorpion King's shadow loomed over the crack for a second before quickly passing on. He hadn't seen her body. He waited a few more seconds, then squeezed out of the crack, staying low just in case. He lifted her arms and examined them for damages. So far, so good. A few scratches- some bleeding, some not. He could accept that as still keeping her relatively safe, and by her silence, she could too.

Good, now that we're on our own, we need to regroup with Rick. He went his own way as well.

"On it." Memnon headed for the main room, only to be halted by two screams. "Who was…?"

_Jon and Alex. Oh God, if he found them…_

_I won't give him a chance_. Memnon assured her, breaking into a run. He spotted the pair that had screamed on the ledge below theirs, staring at the King as he crawled along the opposite wall. He jumped down onto it, tucking into roll to cushion the landing and be in front of them. He ground the swords together, getting ready for his part of the right.

"Go! Leave! We'll meet you out there!" Memnon pointed at the door behind them.

Jonathan didn't have to be asked twice. He picked up Alex with one arm and tore down the hallway,stopping short towards the end.

Memnon turned back, just in time to see Rick careening through the air. He hit the wall hard, and the Scorpion King slowed his advancement. This was it. "AKKADIAN!" He barked.

Tess couldn't believe how angry he had sounded through her voice. Hell, she hadn't sounded that angry for years. Just what had those two been through together?

Rick looked up at what he assumed was just her, and offered a weak, "… Tess?"

Memnon didn't pay either of them any mind. He held up the swords in the way he remembered he had all those thousands of years ago, right before he had died the first time. "Shall we test who dies well first once more?!" He called.

Rick frowned again, but the Scorpion King physically drew back as recognition grew on his own face of just who was controlling the woman before him. He growled and snapped his pincers with renewed vigor, scowling.

"RICK! TESS!"

Tess' heart stopped just again, and somehow she could feel the shock came through. She made herself glance to the side for a moment. Evy was there. Evy was_ alive._

_Yes, it's pleasing, but this beast is about to kill us, so can we focus?!_ Memnon demanded. He felt Tess draw back ever-so-slowly, pulled back his sword and charged.

The Scorpion King started to meet him halfway. His sword managed to catch one of the pincers and he ducked the other. Rick came out of nowhere to help, forcing the other back.

"This is my fight, Richard. Go back! Help your family!" Memnon barked.

Rick parried one of the King's blows. "Look! I don't know who the Hell you are, or how the Hell you're inside my friend, but Tess is my family as much as the others are, and if she's in this fight, I'm helping my family by helping her!" Rick

"Fine!" Memnon called, twirling his sword and slamming it hard into the King's stinger, effectively pinning it to the ground, if only for a time as the King brought it back up moments later. The struggle continued for a few moments until Rick barked at him to back up. Once he followed the order, Rick kicked over fire again, effectively using the process of everything around getting caught on fire to his advantage this time.

The King reared back, swatting at the fire.

Memnon prepared to charge again, but Rick held him back. "Hey. You're not burning Tess on top of all this." He called, watching the creature back up further. He spotted something glint out of the corner of his eye and launched himself into the air.

Memnon struggled for them to see what it was, and then frowned as he saw that Rick had just grabbed a golden spear. He watched Rick catch it, then swung his sword and parried the King's pincer as the King tried to slice Rick in half as he sailed through the air. "Not today!"

The King roared, and slammed the pincer back into Tess' body, sending her flying back. Her back took the brunt of the impact, but her head still caught the stone as she hit the wall, then collapsed in a heap on the ground as she did so. The room started to spin, and her vision started to double and blur. She could barely make out the fight that had suddenly turned into shapes. Rick fell somewhere. The Scorpion King followed. It jerked a moment later. Everything was fading to black. That wasn't good. She felt herself use her fingers to try and help pull herself upright, and the feeling of having her own body back was suddenly foreign. _Memnon…?_

_I'm here, I've just lost control and I can't get it back. Stay with me, my love._

_That's kind of hard. Am I bleeding?_

_You can see for yourself now. I'm fading. I don't know why. Stay awake._

Tess raised her hand to the back of her head. No blood. That didn't seem possible. Her eyelids were starting to droop. She was keenly aware of someone calling her name, but that was it. Her world went black.

* * *

Tess groaned, coming to. Something soft was under her body as well as over it. That clearly wasn't the way in which she was situated the last time she was awake. She opened her eyes slowly to find herself in what she realized was a hospital room. Rick was sitting in the chair across from the bed, watching her. He visibly sighed and scooted forward. "Hey…"

"Hi. Where am I?"

"Before I answer or you ask, I want to ask you one thing…" Rick cut her off.

"… Okay?"

"The fourth time I met you when I was in the Legion- the thing that happened that really weirdly made us good friends back in the day- what was it?"

Tess frowned at him, then went pink in the cheeks. "Johnny Roland. You walked in on us fooling around a bit. You wouldn't leave me alone about it for a while, and when it turns out Johnny had a girl back home, you beat the crap out of him for hurting me, even if I was kind of the other woman, and… it was kind of nice, as far as I was concerned."

Rick smiled weakly and reached over to pat her thigh. "Good to have you back, Tessie. Guess whoever had you is gone now…"

Tess frowned. "What?"

"Back when… Hey, you remember taking on the Scorpion King and Imhotep, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course…" Tess nodded. "I take we got out okay? Who got me outta there?

"Yes, and Jon did. Evy's alive by the way. Alex read from The Book and got her back. Runs in the family, I guess. Uh, that can wait, though. I'm worried about you now. You remember… not being you, right?" Rick asked, then straightened up when she frowned. "Leave it to someone with adventures like us to get possessed when we have to kill an undead mummy and a man-scorpion thing. Apparently we have some guy Memnon to thank for that. Jonathan heard you that name right before you got knocked out." Rick replied.

Tess made a face. "Who the Hell is Memnon?"

Rick stared at her then blinked. "You're serious."

The conversations stopped when a couple of nurses came in to check on her, and a doctor checked a few things. To her surprise, Rick didn't mention the apparent amnesia. The doctors left, and Rick leaned forward again.

Tess sat up. "What the Hell did I miss, Rick?"

Rick scooted closer. "… I think the question's how much, first of all, then…"

Tess leaned forward. Great. Apparently something important was now completely missing from her memory. Maybe that was why she felt empty on top of being weak. But what on Earth could case that? She tried to get as comfortable as possible. Something told her it would be a long day. She wasn't at all looking forward to it.


	21. Trouble In Somewhat Paradise

**A/N: Alright, here we go, third and final part to the fic. I don't own the Mummy, blah blah blah. The Marcus you're about to meet is not the Marcus in the chaps set in the future, just fyi, just in case I didn't put this note in and possibly confuse y'all. Anyways, short chapter for now, but that's only because I had a huge first chapter until I realized too much stuff happened in it so it's being split up. It'll either be put up soon, or relatively soon after I start fixing up the first few chapters of this whole fic itself so it's not as terrible. Enjoy, and don't forget to review!**

* * *

**_1938:_**

Alia Bey huffed as she and her mother reached the gymnasium she was getting tired of seeing. The twelve- year-old wanted to be part of the place like her brother was, but her mother had continuously refused. She didn't understand- when you were the child of a warrior, no matter if you were a girl or boy, you should have _some_ practice with fighting. It sounded like it was going to run in the family, so why not? "Mooom, when can I start practicing here? It's not fair Les gets to. I'm older,"

Tess sighed and opened the door into the main room, ushering her daughter in. "We've been over this. Maybe when you're older, but right now, let's just keep you out of this. Your father doesn't want you involved with all that."

"But he wants Les to be? You and Aunt Evy fought with Dad and Uncle Rick and Uncle Jon and the others when Imhotep was around," Alia protested.

"It's… talk to your father next time. I'm just trying to do what he asks without having you get into the usual family trouble."

"That's what Uncle Rick said," Alia pointed out. "And it's not like Dad's ever here lately to ask…"

Tess flinched. "Alia, just… not now, please. Let's just get your brother home and then we can talk about it- please?" Tess asked. Garner

"Fine," Alia sighed.

They turned their attention to the small wrestling ring in the center of the room.

An eight-year-old Les was taking weak, uncoordinated swings with a wooden staff at a tall, lithe brunette man, who was shouting various directions at him while holding back laughter that Wes was scrambling to obey. Les spotted the pair and grinned. "Mom! Lia!" He all but dropped the staff and ran out of the ring, almost clipping his instructor in the shins with the staff as he did so.

"See you next week, Les! Work on that footwork!" his instructor called.

Les waved over his shoulder, then stopped short in front of them. "Hi!" He greeted.

Tess ruffled his hair. "Hi, Sweetheart. Sorry I'm late. I thought Uncle Jon would still be here. Trust him to disappear when it's just him, his nephew and strangers, and then there was traffic…"

"I am still here, Tessie!"

Tess looked up and beamed, spotting Jonathan making his way over. "Hey, Stranger!"

Jonathan finished his trek over and kissed her on the cheek before ruffling his niece and nephew's hair. "Hello, you three! Haven't seen you in ages!" he laughed when Alia and Les all but wrapped themselves around him. "Well, I've been quite missed, haven't I?"

"Of course you have. It's not every day that their uncle actually starts to make something of his life and succeeds so he has to disappear from his family's sight for ages," Tess replied. "So, Jon- how's Imhotep's doing, hm?" Tess asked. She still wasn't happy about the name of the name of the club that Jon had started, but that didn't mean she wasn't happy that it kept him out of trouble.

"Absolutely spectacular, dear sister," Jonathan threaded his arm through her elbow. "Hey, Lessie, why don't you take Lia and introduce her to your friends when your Mum and I talk shop, hm?"

"Sure!" Les replied, grabbing Alia's hand and dragging her off.

After a few moments, Tess arched an eyebrow at her brother. "Talk shop? Since when do you and I talk shop?"

"Since I became a relatively successful businessman… … and I have a friend I want you to meet."

Before Tess could even respond, Jonathan was dragging her towards the back room towards the back room behind the ring. "Marc! Marc you back there?!" He called.

"Behind you, Jon,"

The siblings turned towards the voice. Tess recognized him as the instructor she had seen earlier. She would be lying if she didn't admit the man was attractive, with neat brown hair, a fair bit of stubble, bright blue eyes and had a nice smile that was directed straight at her at that moment. She wondered why she suddenly had the urge to touch his cheek to the point she had to ball her hands into fists to stop herself. What had caused that? Just being on the receiving end of it gave her a foreign sense of déjà vu- as if it was about to happen, but it didn't get there fully.

The instructor offered his hand. "So you're the mighty Teresa Carnahan I've heard so much about."

Between your son's praise and your brother's talks, I figured I might as well meet the legend. Marcus Fletcher, at your service."

Tess smiled, trying not to roll her eyes. A sweet talker- great. "Tess _Bey_, pleased to meet you," she stepped on Jonathan's foot when he looked between them a fair bit longer than she would've liked.

Jonathan looked between them, then beamed. "Great! Tessie, see you and the kids back at the house!" He hurried off.

The remaining two watched as Jonathan hurried off.

After a few moments of silence, Tess inhaled sharply. Suddenly what Jonathan was getting at introducing them was becoming clear. "Look, Mister Fletcher, whatever my brother's told you-"

"Tends to be fallacy, and Marcus, please," Marcus replied. "Missus Bey, I… I asked to speak with you only about your son."

"My son? Is he okay?"

"Oh, he's fine, physically. I just wanted to let you know that some of the boys are giving Les a hard time over not keeping up with them with all this, or… not having a present father," he finished quickly.

Tess flinched. And there it was. They were two entirely different issues, but still the same. She was going to kill Jonathan. Then again, Marcus didn't seem to be flirting. There just seemed to be real concern written in his features.

Figuring if there would be animosity, the time had passed, Marcus continued. "Les is a good boy. He's managed to look past all that. They're not little cads all the time, but… they can be when they want to," Marcus replied.

She sighed and crossed her arms. "I hate children sometimes. I can't wait him and his friends to get a little older so it stops."

Marcus chuckled and raised his eyebrows in agreement. "My boy's just getting into his pre-teen years and I'm terrified."

Tess looked at him. "You have one too?"

Marcus nodded at the crowd at one of the blonde boys not facing them. "The tallest of the bunch. I have him try to tell off the boys who start trouble, I assure you."

Tess looked at the boy in question, then turned back. "Well, it's appreciated. It's rough, when I'm the only parent around and then I have siblings and in-laws helping."

"Ah. Fellow divorcee, I take it then?" he asked. After a moment, he backpedalled. "I truly don't mean to overstep. I just… it's more to tell the boys to hope they'll lay off a little bit."

"No, not divorced," Tess shook her head. "Just… his work takes him far away for ages at a time. I try to keep everything in strides, but… they're starting to get a little annoyed with me now and it's starting to show…" She glanced back at Alia, who still looked annoyed. She paused. Why was she suddenly pouring this all out on him? Even if he had just shared something himself, he still looked like a deer in the headlights, worrying about crossing a line. She hadn't done the dumping emotions thing in years- the last time she had done it this much was with Henderson when they were children and she finally broke when he had started her on the topic of her parents' state of divorce. Ironic, in a way. No. Ardeth and I are still strong- the only thing in the way is a body of water.

Marcus made a sympathetic face, sensing it was time to change the subject. He nodded at Alia. "How old's the girl?"

"Ten and starting to have my attitude from back and I more and more by the hour," Tess replied, then laughed when he flinched again. "Exactly,"

"Good luck with that one," Marcus replied. "Take it in strides and keep reminding yourself it will hopefully be over soon- that's what I did."

It was Tess' turn to raise her eyebrows, then she smiled. "So I've heard. Alright, well, I've got to go. The kids'll get impatient soon enough. Nice meeting you, though."

Marcus nodded, then watched her as she called for Les and Alia and the pair hurried after her out the door.

She turned right at one point, ready to go back to her own house, where Jonathan had probably run off to, but thought better of it. No, she was definitely going to need her sister's help to murder Jonathan for bringing that on- and discussing the sense of déjà vu that seemed eerily similar to Evy's case lately.


	22. A Kiss With a Fist

Tess glanced up at the front of the bar she was about to go into. Imhotep's- was Jonathan really that greedy to make such a thing out of something that had almost killed them multiple times? She had avoided going into it for that exact reason, but now she needed a drink badly, and Rick and Evy had taken the kids for a bit. She went in and headed right for the nearest barstool. Once her drink was ordered, she let herself settle in. It had been a long week up until that moment, that was for sure. She didn't know where Alia's sudden resentment against Ardeth came from. Maybe kids at school were giving her a hard time like they were with Les. Why could anybody be so cruel at any age? She looked down. She needed Ardeth here. He'd have a solution- whether it was just his presence or something he'd say. God- she missed him.

"Now what's a beautiful woman doing alone in a skeevy place like this?"

Tess turned to see Marcus a few feet behind her, smiling at her. She'd have to make a mental note that one of Jon's friends was already insulting his establishment when it was just one of three places open so far. "Excuse me?"

Marcus shrugged. "What brings you to this kind of a place alone? You should be with someone. There could be some unscrupulous characters about."

Tess smirked. No wonder Jon liked him. "Sounds like you could be one of them. You following me, now? You do recall I'm married- to a man who's taught me to defend myself in quite a few ways- same with my brother-in-law and best friend. Fists, sword, gun, you name it," she pointed out, only half joking.

Marcus let out a breath's worth of a laugh and sat on the barstool beside her. "Worry not, Mrs. Carnahan-"

"Bey, actually."

"Mrs. _Bey_- I'm in no habit of stealing men's wives."

"But flirting with them is okay?"

"I'm merely being a gentleman by protecting their wives when most can't."

"I just told you I don't need protection. This is my brother's place, too…"

"Yes, I'm aware it's your brother's. And I have no doubt that you don't. You have that air about you. I just happened to find here when I was attending to some… business," he replied.

Tess arched an eyebrow. "You are talking about something that isn't strictly legal, aren't you?"

"Is it the fact I look posh but don't act it, or the fact that I'm friends with your brother?" Marcus replied.

"A bit of both," Tess replied. "You don't come across as a murderer, so what's your poison?"

Marcus smirked, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a warn, greenish wallet, holding it between his pointer and middle fingers to show her. "From the man by the door who's taken quite the interest in your legs."

Tess glanced over her shoulder, then sure enough, a man was staring at the mentioned assets. She adjusted herself. "So, thief, then?"

"Rob from the bastards and the scum, give to the deserving," Marcus replied.

Tess glanced down at her purse. No sense in taking precautions in case it was a lie.

"I'm not in the habit of stealing a woman's money either. You're safe with me on all counts."

"But why admit that to me?"

"Because, Mrs. Bey- there's something about you I just can't place. I trust you, and I don't know why."

Tess concealed a frown. So she wasn't the only one. There was no way this was a coincidence. She wanted to know what the Hell was going on, without tipping him off. Feeling like she could trust him and knowing were two different things, after all. "Well that was honest."

Marcus smirked, then nodded a thanks at the bartender when he brought his drink over. He shrugged. "I repeat- gentleman. Honesty comes with the job… well, except for the people who don't deserve it."

Tess laughed at that, then frowned when she spotted a group of six men dressed much like Lock-Nah and his men had been those years ago. "Oh, now that's not a coincidence…" She put her own drink down and made a note of the exits- that was, until she heard Marcus swear under his breath. She looked at him and saw he was looking at the same thing in the mirror. "Friends of yours?"

"Not exactly…" Marcus replied.

Tess fully frowned this time. Why did he look so anxious? If anything they were following her. Had they been following him, too?

Before she could even respond, the one leading the pack approached them. "Mister Fletcher…"

Marcus turned to the group and offered a smile. "Excuse me, Boys. Can we do this later? I'm just trying to have a quiet drink with my wife,"

Tess frowned at Marcus, but his return look all but screamed 'play along.' She smiled weakly and put her hand midway up his thigh. His eyes flicked to hers, but she continued to look at the men in question. "Who are these people, Sweetheart?" An honest question within a lie- her strong suit.

"Old friends, just trying to catch up, Darling. An old theatre group. Nothing major," he replied. "They've been hounding me for ages and usually I knock a few back with them but some never learn," he added. He looked at her, and Tess realized that he was trying to give her information through that. Knock him back- fight them off? Was that what he meant?

Marcus faked a laugh and turned back to the table, leaning towards her in the process. "Five seconds after I put down the drink- duck," he muttered.

Tess nodded, covering it up as a glance at her hands in her lap.

Marcus smiled at the men. "Well, boys? What's this about this time?" He asked. He took a drink, then set it down carefully.

Tess didn't know who moved first- either the pair of them, or the opposing group. She and Marcus both leaned far over the table. While Marcus got the rifle located a foot to his right under the bar, Tess grabbed the nearest wine bottle and smashed it over the corner. The men were on them, but the pair were slightly faster, going back to back right away.

"You've done this before," Marcus mused, slamming the butt of the gun into one of the men's face.

"Well, between being a Carnhan, Bey and… pretty much an O'Connell as well…"She shrugged, swinging the neck of the bottle and having the edges connect with one of the men's chest, sending him sprawling back, holding his cheek.

"Fair point," Marcus swung the rifle again, knocking a man who was about to shoot at them off balance. He swung again, clearing a path for a few startled patrons, as well as them to get to the door. Marcus reached over and grabbed Tess's arm, pushing her towards the door. "Go! Keep low to the ground and go!" He ordered.

The pair charged out of the bar, and when Marcus took hold of Tess' sleeve and yanked her to the right, she followed. They ran for a few blocks, fully aware a few members of the group were still on their tail.

Tess pointed down towards one of the busier streets. "We can lose them in there, trust me."

"Doesn't look like I have much choice," Marcus replied. The pair ran, then once they got a few feet into the crowd and stopped.

After a few moments, Tess looped her elbow through his and leaned into him.

Marcus eased into her, then rounded the corner into a small alley, taking hold of her waist and steering her in front of him, then pushed her up against the wall and got chest to chest with her.

Not at all liking the certain chain of events, Tess tried to scoot away and shove him back, only to panic slightly when he clamped a hand over her mouth. So much for trusting her weird gut instinct that told her he was okay.

However, she ate her words when his hand loosened slightly and he leaned forward, keeping his voice low, "Shh, shh, shhh! I told you I mean you no harm, Miss. Bey- I mean it. You're perfectly safe. We'll be out just as soon as…" He went dead silent when a couple of their pursuers went running past the alley. After a few seconds and more men passed, Marcus finally eased up. He waited a few more moments, still staring at . "Come with me. We need to find my friend. I'm sorry I've wrapped you all into this."

"You mistake me for someone who doesn't have to deal with this on a relatively regular basis- I thought they were after me," Tess replied.

"Yes, I figured something like that when you went for the wine bottle- nice work back there by the way." Marcus replied, then squinted. "Hold on- why do you think they were after you?"

"Uh, no. My turn to talk. My turn to question. Why were they after _you_?"

"I have certain talents that outweigh the rest- and a few strange dreams to back them up," Marcus replied. He backed up again, then motioned towards the mouth of the alley. "Come on. My friend will know how to get you out of this," he led the way, then when he spotted another of their pursuers in the distance. He groaned, then rounded on her. "I stand by what I said before, so I'm sorry for this," he forced out before he pushed her back against the brick wall and kissed her hard.

Tess yelped again. After a moment, she realized it was the typical cliché avoid-being-seen-by-hiding-in-plain-sight thing, but it was still all wrong. And then something clicked. In a flash, everything she had lost those years ago came rushing back. _Seeing the hieroglyphs- the man in them. Finding out more about her own past life. Finding out she had apparent had a soft spot for a tyrant. And then those moments and then some- meeting the tyrant himself, working with him, a few more moments far more intimate than what they were doing now, getting hurt, having him hover over her-_ it was all there, then it came crashing down. And it hurt like a punch to the gut. She realized it probably came with the territory of getting two lifetime's worth of memories back in one fell swoop.

When they saw the last pursuer had moved on, the pair split apart and stared at each other for a while. After a bit Tess groaned in pain and was surprised to find she let him reach out hesitantly then help steady her.

After a few moments, Marcus finally spoke. "You're not just the poor near-single mother with a fellow talent for trouble, are you?"

"And you're not just a gentleman thief with a heart of gold," Tess responded. "You're Memon…"

"Not anymore. Guess your _foresight'_s a bit off after however many centuries…" Marcus deadpanned. He hesitated and let his hand hover over her wrist a while before taking hold of it. "You're more involved in this than you know…" He mused before pulling her down the street once again.

Eventually they came to a stop in front of an old brick apartment. Marcus looked around once again before turning his attention to the window above them. "Amir! Amir, Where are you?!"

A man with tan skin and greying black hair opened the window, then the shutters and looked down at them. He sighed. "What trouble have you gotten into now- and you dragged a lady into it this time. For God's sake, Man!"

"Would you just let us in?!" Marcus snapped.

Amir huffed dramatically before closing the windows and shutters. A few moments later, he opened the door and Marcus pushed his way inside. Amir narrowed his eyes at him, then looked back at Tess and stepped back before holding up a fireplace poker with both hands. "Madame, whatever Marcus has told you, I assure you it is at least ninety percent true. A woman of your stature should not be alone with two men she has just met, however, so if you wish, take this as insurance you're safe."

"I'm fine, thanks," Tess replied.

"Fair enough," Amir replied. "Come in. You're clearly not a conquest, so you must have business…"

"Well… it's a bit of both, frankly," Marcus added. "Just… half in one century, half in the other."

Amir stared at him, then turned to Tess, giving her a sympathetic look. "For your sake and his, I'm sorry."

"She knows of Memnon, Amir. She's part of that past herself, somehow," Marcus reported.

Amir's eyebrows shot up and he sized Tess up. "Well that changes things, doesn't it?" He asked. "I suppose I'll make tea. I'm Amir LeGrand, by the way. Take a seat, sounds like we have a lot to talk about."

"So… … you're aware of this yourself?" Tess pointed out.

"More or less. I'm a childhood friend of his, only one who believed the dreams were real…. The visions…" he waved his hands dramatically. "Thought he was a lunatic for a while until I realized just about everyone we knew thought the same and turned against him," he added before turning and leaving.

A moment later, the door burst open, and the three jumped in alarm, all doing their own thing. While Tess ducked behind the nearest table and Amir merely peeked around the corner, Marcus knelt down, pulled a pistol from out from under the settee in the corner and pointed it straight towards the intruder-

Who, was, of all people- Rick, who immediately pointed his own pistol back at Marcus.

"Alright, I don't know who the Hell you people are, but I got a tip you have my sister-in-law, and that's gonna piss a lot of people off!"

"Whoa, Rick! Easy, I'm fine!" Tess got up, smacking Marcus' hand to let him lower his gun.

"Tess, you have ten seconds to explain all this. Who are these guys?!"

"Well, Rick, you see, this is… an acquaintance of mine, and we were just having a drink in a bar, and… well, some men came to get him, and long story short after that- this is Marcus, and well, he's that tyrant king, and I remember everything, and… … well, since those guys are after us, we need to get the family business up and running again, because…. We're probably in danger because of it!" She finished, then smiled innocently.

Rick paused, then looked between the three of them and sighing. He tucked his own gun back in his pants. "I married into the wrong family, didn't I?" He looked at Marcus and Amir, then hooked his ankle around the nearest chair in order to drop into it. "Make a long story short _now_- and who's the one with the kettle?"


End file.
